


And With Them The Light Left

by dunn0man



Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Family, Angst, Big Brothers, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Kid Fic, Minor Character Death, Protective Siblings, Siblings, Team as Family, Tony DiNozzo & Jethro Gibbs Father-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 61,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23515087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunn0man/pseuds/dunn0man
Summary: Mom and Kelly died and everything was pretty much steadily down hill from there.-----Where the team are all Gibbs and Shannon's children and they have to muddle through as a family following a tragic car accident. Told from Tony's perspective.
Relationships: Anthony DiNozzo & Abby Sciuto, Anthony DiNozzo & Caitlin Todd, Anthony DiNozzo & Ducky Mallard, Anthony DiNozzo & Jenny Shepard, Anthony DiNozzo & Jethro Gibbs, Anthony DiNozzo & Jimmy Palmer, Anthony DiNozzo & Leon Vance, Anthony DiNozzo & Shannon Gibbs, Anthony DiNozzo & Timothy McGee, Anthony DiNozzo & Tobias Fornell, Anthony Dinozzo & Brad Pitt (NCIS)
Comments: 144
Kudos: 154





	1. Beginning of the End

His suit shirt is starchy and it’s been ironed slightly wrong. Sweat is tickling his neck at the base of his collar and he isn’t crying. The church smells cold and damp and the hard wooden pew is making his butt hurt. And he isn’t going to cry, because he doesn’t want to embarrass Dad. Dad won’t cry. The others are all crying. There’s a wet patch on his suit jacket that is starting to seep through the lining into his shirt from Tim’s tears and he can hear Kate’s whimpering and Abby is creating a wet patch twice the size of Tim’s on his pant leg. She’d curled up there after the first preacher’s speech. Tony hopes it doesn’t look like he’s peed himself. Then he scolds himself because that’s not really appropriate right now. Tony stares at Dad standing at the front of the church in his pristine suit, his hair neatly combed and an emotionless expression on his face. Mom’s picture is on his right and Kelly’s is on his left, looking over him like angels, that’s what he whispers to Tim anyway. He doesn’t understand the need for their pictures, everyone knows what they looked like and it seems like a presentation at school. Dad has been standing there silently for long enough for someone to clear their throat. Dad looks down at the papers in front of him and opens his mouth. He gets as far as ‘My girls were beautiful…’ before his face crumbles and Tony holds his breath because Holy Shit (sorry God) Dad is crying. He takes a step away from the stand and briefly looks back at the two coffins before drawing in a sharp breath, like he can’t really breathe right. He begins to walk back to their pew. Gramps and Tony stand at the same time. The whole church goes quiet, Gramps looks at him and Tony nods, handing Tim over. Tim wails, trying to cling to Tony’s suit, but Gramps shushes him. He exits the pew just as Dad reaches it. He rests his hands on Tony’s neck and brushes a kiss into his hair. Dad never does that to Tony in public, they’re men. 

Tony gets to the front of the church, stands behind the stand and can’t see anything. The preacher comes over with a box for him to stand on. He looks down at Dad’s piece of paper, and carefully doesn’t think about the photos that are in the sides of his vision. He understands why Dad cried but he promised himself he wouldn’t, men don’t cry. He can almost hear Mom’s voice coming from the picture to his right saying, ‘Don’t be silly, honey, everyone cries. Not crying doesn’t make you a man, it makes you inhumane.’ He never did get round to asking her what inhumane means. He looks out, he looks at Dad who only just seems to have realised why Tony left the pew and has mostly stopped crying to look at Tony in shock. Tony looks just past him to where Uncle Ducky is. He looks so proud and when they make eye contact, he nods at Tony. Tony nods back, then looks down to the piece of paper and begins to read. His whole body feels like it has pins and needles and like he’s not really there. Like it’s not his body and it’s not his voice echoing around the church. He makes it through the first paragraph, all about how nice Mom and Kelly were. He skims the first line of the next paragraph and then looks out to everyone in the church. He looks at the door at the back, rather than any particular person and says,

“Then he talks about being a husband and a father, but I don’t really know about that.” Everyone laughs, they are snotty laughs, in between crying but it makes something swell in Tony’s chest. It’s the first thing he’s really felt since Aunt Jenny said the words ‘There’s been an accident.’ It makes him briefly aware of the gaping hole in his chest but the feeling itself is not a bad one. He smiles out into his audience. The feeling goes and he’s trapped outside of his body again, he thinks it’s probably better like that. He licks his lips,

“But I do know about being a son and a little brother.” He looks to his family in the front pew. Dad’s face is straight again and Gramps looks sad but proud and Kate is weeping and clinging to Abby and Tim who are still crying. “My mom was the best mom there was. She loved us so much. Everything she did everyday was because she loved us so much. She loved me even when I did badly in school, or when I got in trouble, even when I got in trouble for fighting. She loved me when I cried, especially when I cried. She was always there…” and it hits him properly for the first time that he’s never going to see his mom again, he’s never going to be wrapped in her arms and kissed all over and he feels the hole in his chest grow a bit bigger but he’s still too numb to cry. “And Kelly,” he looks at Kate and thinks actually maybe he is going to cry, but then he looks at Dad and he promised he wouldn’t. “Kelly was the bestest big sister you could ever ask for. She always let me join in, even though she was going to be a teenager next year she promised that she wasn’t going to be too cool for us. She gave the best hugs and she always knew what to say. She kept me out of trouble a lot and she took the blame when she couldn’t. Also she hit like a girl so I didn't mind when she was angry 'cos it never hurt very much.” People laughed again, he looked directly at Kate, “She looked after me and I hope that I can be as good at looking after you as she was. We will miss them more than I can explain.” He stepped off the block and tried to take a deep breath, but it felt like he couldn’t. He was shaking, crumpling Dad’s paper in his hands. He’s vaguely aware of Gramps coming to the front, tucking him under his big arm and guiding him back to the pew. 

The next time he’s really aware of himself is when he’s presented with a bowl of mud, he looks at the hole in the ground, with two coffins and dirt scattered on them. Dad puts his hand between his shoulders and Tony takes a handful of the dirt. He does Mom’s coffin first. Then takes another handful for Kelly’s. Kate goes next. When it comes to Abby she asks if she can drop Kelly’s Polly Pocket instead, Dad says no but the preacher says yes and blesses it for her. Tony helps Tim do it because his hands are too small and he’s too little to really understand properly. In the car on the way back to the house Tony realises, with shame, that he has tears streaming down his face. He and Kate are holding hands, their fingers intertwined and palms sweaty. Tim is asleep on Gramps and Abby is sitting forlornly in Dad’s lap. Dad has the face he gets when he’s sad and thinking about the war, but he hasn’t noticed Tony crying. He wipes his face on his suit sleeve. He doesn’t want to make Dad cross today, men don’t cry. 

The house is full of people and Tony had to stand by the door and let them all hug him and tell him how sorry they are and how brave he was at the church. When they finish the line, Tony and Kate sit on the stairs, Abby and Tim follow. Everyone is walking around and eating cocktail sausages and talking about how much they liked mom. There are kids from school, even some of Tony’s friends but mostly Kelly’s and they’re mostly in the garden. Dad is sitting on the sofa and Gramps and Uncle Tobias haven’t left him alone since they got back. It’s weird being back in the house. They’ve been staying with Ducky because Dad can’t ‘face being in that house, Duck’. They sit on the stairs, huddled together, mostly silent. People keep trying to talk to them, and Tony just smiles and nods because he’s too tired to talk back. After a while, Jenny comes and sits on the stairs with them, like a guard dog. The people take forever to leave and Tim falls asleep on Tony. They stay there, the four of them and Aunt Jenny, until all the strangers have left and it’s just their patchwork family; that’s what Mom had called it when Kate had asked why they call them all Uncles when none of them are actually related. Tobias puts all the sympathy food in the freezer. Tony asks him what sympathy means and Tobias says it's when people are nice because they feel sorry for you. Uncle Tobias leaves first because Diane and baby Emily are waiting for him at home. He hugs each of them, kneeling in front of Tony with his hand on the back of Tony’s neck, like Dad does, he says he’s a good boy and runs his thumb over Tony’s forehead, then pulls him in for the hug and whispers in his ear, “Look after them, kid.” 

Dad’s boss, Mr Morrow leaves at the same time Leon does. Leon doesn’t like Tony as much as his other Uncles do, he thinks he’s a troublemaker, which he is. They both shake his hand and the fact that Leon doesn’t like him even after Mom and Kelly died makes Tony want to cry again. But then once Mr Morrow is out of the door, Leon leans down and says that Tony is the bravest boy he’s ever known and his girlfriend, Jackie, kisses Tony on the cheek. Gramps drives them back to Ducky’s and Dad, Jenny and Mrs Mallard all go in Ducky’s car. Tony sits in the front and the others in the back, all asleep. They’re stopped at a red light, when Gramps turns to look at him, he opens his mouth twice before he finally asks if Tony is okay. Tony’s too tired to talk so he just nods. Gramps strokes his ear, and it’s kinda weird but kinda nice and Tony decides to pretend to fall asleep before he starts crying. He feels someone lift him out of the car and he makes sure his breathing is deep and even, he smells that’s Dad and he snuggles into him a bit to really sell the shtick. Dad probably knows he’s not really asleep, that’s his job after all, to know things. He carries Tony to his room and pulls his shoes off, then gently and carefully takes the suit off until Tony is in his underwear and Tony knows that Dad would never do this if he even thought Tony might be faking. He tucks Tony under the covers. He stays in the room for a bit, stroking Tony’s hair, Tony starts feeling himself drifting off to sleep. He thinks he remembers Dad doing this when he was very little, when Dad still used to smell like what Tony would later learn was gun powder. He has to stop himself from flinching when he feels a warm splash on his forehead, Dad’s crying on him. Dad wipes the tear away with his big, rough thumb, whispers a thank you in his ear and then kisses his forehead for the second time that day and leaves. 


	2. Aftermath

Tony sleeps a lot but he always feels tired. The numbness is slowly fading and he feels so sad it makes him feel sick. He hasn’t spoken for three days when Kate corners him after breakfast in the Mallard’s massive garden. She holds his hand and says,

“You’re scaring me. Why won’t you speak?”

Tony shrugs, he hadn’t really noticed. But apparently everyone else has because Ducky and Gramps keep asking if he’s alright. So does Mrs Mallard, she accidentally says it’s like having a ghost in the house and Kate and Abby start crying which makes Tim cry too. Dad is mostly drunk. He always has a drink in his hand and Tony leaves the room whenever he sees him drinking because he _knows_ Mom hated when Dad was drunk. They argued about it a lot. The first thing Tony says for two weeks after the funeral is ‘Stop drinking.’ He hears Ducky and Dad whisper arguing from downstairs, they’re making a lot of noise by the front door. Tony goes downstairs and stands there, waiting for them to notice him. Dad sees him first, stopping mid sentence. They both stare at him for a bit and then Tony says it. He turns around and goes back upstairs, stopping halfway to say, “I think we should go back to school now.”

They move back into their house after that. Dad and Gramps had cleaned out Kelly’s room, her stuff was in boxes in the attic and Mom and Dad’s room had been emptied so it just had basic furniture in. It didn’t really feel like home anymore, Dad had hidden most of the pictures of Mom and Kelly, but Tony had found some and put them under his bed. He’d also figured out that he wanted to be left alone, he wanted to be sad alone so that he could look after the others when they needed him. He realised the best way to do this was to be loud, people stopped looking at him when he was loud, so he talked a lot, and he told a lot of jokes to try and get that feeling that he’d had in the church back. Tim always laughed and Tony liked that. He tried very hard not to be bad though. Tony had always been the bad one, but everyone was too tired and too sad for that, so Tony tried his best to be good and grown up like Kelly. School was nice because he didn’t have to think much. He found school easy so he never really tried and the kids had mostly stopped treating him weird, so it was nice and he didn’t have to try and be anything. Dad had mostly stopped drinking and had gone back to work. Gramps moved in and looked after them. It wasn’t like having Mom there and Tony kept looking over his shoulder to say something to Kelly but she was never there. Sometimes after everyone had gone to sleep, Tony would creep into Kelly’s room and lie on the carpet where her bed had been, staring at the stars stuck to the ceiling. 

After about six months Dad got sick of having Gramps in his space and they had a big fight with lots of shouting. Dad even threw a plate at the wall and Gramps tried to punch him at one point. Tony and Kate watched through the banisters on the stairs, in their pyjamas. Kate started shaking at one point and Tony wrapped his arms around her. He felt very old. Dad kicked Gramps out, saying that they didn’t need him and they weren’t his kids, they were Dad’s. Tony wanted to go downstairs and say that he wanted Gramps to stay, that Dad was always at work and how was he supposed to look after them from there, but Kate was so scared that he didn’t move. Gramps sighed and said he would be out by the end of the week. Tony and Kate ran back to Kate’s room and hid, curled up in her bed until they fell asleep. After Gramps left, things got bad. Dad tried really hard for a week. He couldn’t cook much other than steak so they mostly ate the sympathy food from the freezer. Then a case came in. Tony sweet-talked Mrs Mallard into picking Tim up from preschool and spent three hours when he should have been doing his math homework copying Dad’s handwriting so he could write notes to his, Abby and Kate’s teachers saying they would be walking home together, where they would be watched by an elderly neighbour and that Tony had a phone for emergencies. He was pretty proud of himself for how perfect he got the signature. Tony got pretty good at pasta and the microwave over the next couple of weeks. Dad usually came home after midnight if he came home at all. His biggest problem was Tim had started wetting the bed again and Tony did _not_ have a good relationship with the washing machine. After the third time he went to Walmart and got pull-ups, the lady at the check-out had looked at him suspiciously and asked where his mom was, he had smiled his biggest smile that always made women smile back and said that she was waiting in the car with his three siblings, one of whom was a having a ma-hoo-sive tantrum so he said he would get the pull-ups for his littlest brother for her. She had smiled and said what a good brother he was. He didn’t even feel guilty about lying. 

It all nearly crumbled when Tony had basketball practice on the first Saturday morning. Kate had insisted that if Tony was old enough to look after them then so was she, Tony had told her seriously that there was a big difference between eight and seven. But Kate had always been able to get Tony to give her what she wanted. So Tony left them alone with pre-made peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches for lunch. He had a gut feeling that Dad wouldn’t be home before he was. His coach was an attentive man and would definitely have noticed siblings but no parents, but would probably brush off just no parents. He greeted Tony saying he was glad to have him back and he was sorry to hear about his Mom and sister. 

“Where’s your dad, son?”

“He dropped me off outside. He’ll pick me up after,” Tony spun his lie and topped it off with his best smile. He was getting good at smiling his way out of problems. 

He felt better than he had in weeks, his mind turned off completely just concentrating on the ball and the tingly burn of his legs and arms when he ran. Coach had praised him at the end of practice for having kept his magic touch. Tony was tired and a bit sore but he decided to run all the way home because for the first time since Mom and Kelly had died he didn’t feel like someone was sitting on his chest and shoulders. He opened the door of the house, sweating like a pig, hoping he could run straight into the shower, only to be met by a loud scream that brought the weight crashing back down onto him. He closed the door and skidded into the kitchen. Tim was sitting on the floor screaming his head off, kicking his legs wildly whenever Kate tried to touch him. Abby was holding him against her chest waving a knife at Kate and screaming. Kate was trying her best not to cry. 

“Woah, woah, woah, what happened?” Tony came to crouch in the middle of them all, easing Abby’s arms from around Tim’s chest. 

“She tried to kill Timmy -”

“I didn’t!” 

“-kill him dead, like Mommy and Kelly.”

“Abby!” Tony’s voice was harsh, he’d never been that angry with Abby before, she stopped crying in shock. “Don’t ever say that, d’ya understand? You can’t take those words back and they’re bad.”

Abby nodded, tears pooling in her massive eyes. He kissed her cheek to say sorry for shouting. He asked Kate what really happened, she wiped her eyes with her sleeves, Tony realised that it was one of Kelly’s old cardigans and he swallowed a lump in his throat. Tim had been crying and screaming since Tony had left and he had eventually squirmed out of Kate’s arms and had hit the floor hard, he wouldn’t stop crying.

“Did he hit his head?” Tony asked, already running his hands through Tim’s wispy hair feeling for a bump. Kate shook her head. “Hey, Timmy, buddy, you gotta tell me where it hurts.”

Tim, in response, grabbed his elbow and began wailing again. Tony inspected it and decided it wasn’t broken, he’d broken his arm three years ago when he’d fallen out of Chris Orflack’s treehouse so he was fairly certain he knew what he was talking about. He got Abby to get an icepack from the freezer and then put on _Snow White_ because it was both the girl’s favourite. They curled up on the couch and Tim eventually fell asleep on his lap, forgetting all about the elbow. 

Dad comes home half an hour after the movie ended, none of them had moved. Tony feels hot and sticky from the sweat he’d never had the chance to wash off. Dad looks tired and has big bags under his eyes and his head is hanging down. Abby rushes from the sofa and with a cry of ‘Daddy’ flings herself at him, Kate follows close behind and Tim wriggles to be let out of Tony’s arms. Dad scoops Tim up with one arm and hugs the girls with his other. Tony stands up from the sofa but as relieved as he was to see his Dad, he doesn’t want to hug him, not even a little bit. He realises that he’s angry at Dad, just a bit, but that isn’t really fair so he squashes it down. Dad smiles the first proper smile Tony has seen in a long while, he seems to do a headcount and then turns his head in a panic until he finds Tony. He looks relieved for a second, a split second, before his eyes go dark and Tony just knows that he’d forgotten Kelly wasn’t going to be standing next to Tony. Tony looks away. 

“Everything alright?”

“I’m so so so happy you’re home, Daddy!” Abby says squishing her cheek into his leg. Dad rubs his thumb on Kate’s cheek and Tony knows that he can tell they’ve been crying. 

“We’re fine, Dad. Glad you’re home.” Tony walks past the gathering, heading for the stairs and the shower he really really wants. Dad calls his name, stopping him, he feels a hand on his shoulder seconds before Dad is turning him into a hug. Tony buries his face in Dad’s shirt and wraps his arms tightly around Dad’s stomach, fingers clenching his shirt. Then he remembers the others and that he’s got be grown up and strong for them so they can’t tell how scared he is, so he pulls away. He wipes his nose on his bare arm which makes Dad frown.

“I need a shower, see you later.” 

In the shower he cries again. He cries a lot when he’s alone. When he’s in bed. When he’s on the floor in Kelly’s room. When he’s cooking. 

Dad lets them order Chinese food for dinner. He even gives the others a bath and puts them to bed while Tony and Kate do the washing up. Dad comes down halfway through, looking sad in a way that Tony associates with him drinking beer. 

“Tim wants you to read him a story…” It’s the most awkward Tony has ever heard his Dad sound and it makes his mouth very dry. He’s aware that this moment means something but he doesn’t really understand what. 

Tim falls asleep after five pages and Tony sits, just cuddling him for a moment like Kelly used to do when he snuck into her bed because he’d been told off. He passes Kate on the stairs on her way to bed. She stops him for a hug and whispers “You’re my hero,” into his ear. When they pull apart she says Dad wants to talk to him. Dad takes him into the basement. Tony hates the basement, whenever Dad was home he always locked himself in the basement and they weren’t allowed in. He sits Tony on a stool and gives him a piece of sandpaper, then he puts his big hands around Tony’s and guides them up and down the big plank of wood on the worktable. The room smells like sawdust and alcohol but Tony doesn’t comment. He feels both extremely safe and very on edge. He’s so tired of always being confused by his emotions. Dad lets go when Tony has the hang of things and goes round the table to sand his own plank of wood. 

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

Tony doesn’t look away from his piece of wood, “You don’t have to be sorry, Dad.” He doesn’t try very hard to be convincing. 

“I’ve not been here, and I’m sorry.”

Tony shrugs, licks his lips like he did in the church, “I really miss them.” 

“Me too.”

“Like all the time. And it hurts. It hurts in my chest and it feels like there's a hole in me or som’th’n.” His tears are blurring his view of the wood so he stops because he knows Dad’ll be mad if he messes up. 

Dad sighs and says, “Me too, kiddo.”

Tony wipes his eyes with his sleeve, “Kate’s wearing her cardigan.” Dad stands and pours something into a mug, Tony’s nose wrinkles with the smell of alcohol. “Maybe Jenny and the Uncles could come over for dinner soon?” Dad nods and Tony slips off the stool, heading for the stairs, “Night, Dad.” 

“Goodnight, Tony.” He waits until Tony’s at the top of the stairs to say, “I love you.”

Tony finds Kate crying in his bed. He wraps her in his arms and cries with her. He doesn’t care whether he seems strong or grown up, it’s Kate and he misses them so much he can’t breathe. He thinks maybe things will get better now.

…

Dad gets another case and Tony keeps everyone going for another week and a half before everything goes wrong. He’s making dinner, cutting carrots because they’d done the food pyramid in school last week and he realised that he wasn’t feeding his siblings well enough. Tim comes running in from the yard, slamming into Tony’s leg shouting ‘homie!’ and Tony is knocked off the stool he’d been standing on, forward onto the counter, the hand holding the carrot flying forward to stop himself and the other hand, holding the knife, comes down on top of it. He doesn’t make a sound. He wants to shout. He really wants to shout. He really wants… his mom. But she’s not here and he can’t freak Tim out. Kate shouts, ‘Help, I’ve been caught’ from the outside and Tony uses the opportunity to say, “Tim, you’ve gotta go save Kate.” And because Tony said so Tim does. Tony lowers himself off of his elbows so his feet touch the floor. The knife is still in his arm, just up from his wrist. He drags the stool over to the sink and pulls the knife out there. He washes the knife first, then his arm, then he wads up some kitchen roll and pushes it into the cut. It soaks with red pretty quickly and Tony sits on the stool because he feels a bit dizzy. He remembers the first aid kit Mom kept under the sink. He thinks the cut looks a bit deep for a band aid but he doesn’t know how to open the bandage packaging so he picks the biggest band aid there is and sticks it on the cut as well as he can one handed. He can see the red pool up under the skin colored fabric, so he puts his sweater on to stop the others from noticing. He finishes dinner even though his arm really hurts and he really wants his mom and he feels a bit sick and a bit dizzy. He teases Abby a little extra when they eat to stop any of them noticing that he’s really not feeling great. He tells Kate he’ll wash up if she gives Abby and Tim a bath. He’s been sufficiently annoying throughout dinner that she’s happy to have a break. He pulls his jumper sleeve up and sees that the band aid has swelled with blood like a balloon. He prods it and it throbs back at him. He pulls the sleeve back down, wiping the tears that have formed in his eyes with the back of his other hand. Then he goes to the phone. He considers calling Ducky, then Gramps, then Tobias but he knows that if he really wants Dad to listen there's only one person he can call. 

It rings twice before, “Special Agent Jenny Shepard.” 

“Aunt Jenny -”

“Tony, are you okay?”

He considers telling her, he really does. “I’m fine. Just can you tell my Dad that if he won’t let Gramps come back he needs to hire a babysitter.”

“Tony?” She sounds really confused.

“It’s just that, I don’t think I’m really old enough to be a dad. Thanks, Jenny.” He hangs up before she can say anything else. 

He’s reading Tim and Abby a bedtime story, they’re all snuggled in Tim’s bed, when he hears Jenny shout his name from the front door. A second later she and Dad are standing in the doorway to Tim’s room. Abby and Tim, who had been almost asleep, are on him with cries of 'Daddy' in moments. Jenny steps past them and pulls Tony into a hug before looking him up and down. 

“I’m fine, Aunt Jenny.” 

She harrumphs and repeats the process with Kate. She announces that Dad is going to tuck Tim and Abby into bed and then she takes him and Kate downstairs and makes them cocoa. When Dad comes down stairs he looks sad and angry and Tony takes a step behind Jenny, he’s not scared or anything, he just doesn’t want a spanking. Dad sees him do it and looks sadder. Kate goes and holds his hand. 

“Gramps is going to come back, he’ll be here tomorrow.”

Tony says thank you very quietly and goes to bed right after finishing his cocoa. He lies awake for a bit before Kate comes in, crying. He cuddles her and she soon falls asleep but he stays up listening to Dad and Aunt Jenny argue. He hears the front door open and suddenly there are three more voices. He checks Kate and she’s fast asleep so he untangles himself and goes and sits on the stairs to listen in. He hears Uncle Tobias nearly shout,

“An eight year old, Jethro! Are you out of your mind?” 

“And Tony no less.” Uncle Leon chimes in, Tony sticks his tongue out in the general direction of the kitchen. 

“I’ve half a mind to take them from you!” Tobias is angrier than Tony’s ever heard him and he doesn’t want to lose Dad too so he goes down the stairs even if it might blow his cover.

“Fuck you, Tobias!” Dad slams his hand down on the table, “My Dad’s coming back.”

“Well he raised an incompetent fool the first time around, are we sure that’s really a solution?”

“Everyone calm down,” Ducky’s voice chimes out. “What I want to know, Jethro, is why you didn’t come to us?”

Tony can’t let Dad get in trouble, he can’t lose his Dad too, so he goes in, they had the door open anyway.

“Because I could handle it.” They all turn to look at him and Tobias goes to say something but Tony cuts him off, “I’m the oldest now, so it's my job to look after everyone. I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

Jenny glares at all the men present, before coming over to Tony, “No one’s in trouble, sweetie. But you shouldn’t have been left alone and it’s scared us all a bit, okay? No one’s really angry, just scared.”

“But you’re grown ups?”

“Grown ups get scared too, Tony.” He stares at Leon with big, wide eyes. It makes them all chuckle and Tony feels a bit more like himself now that everyone’s laughing. “You know, it’s alright if you’re not okay.” 

Tony thinks about how his arm still hurts and he glances at Ducky. Uncle Toby spots it, “Tony, if you’re hurt you need to tell us. You’re not in trouble but it’s important.”

“I’m not hurt.”

“You looked at Ducky.”

“He’s my Uncle.”

“He’s a doctor,” counters Tobias, and Tony is just about to give in because actually his arm does hurt a lot when there’s a cry from upstairs. 

“What was that?” They all ask at once.

Tony sounding almost too enthusiastic at being out of the spotlight says, “Abby’s been getting nightmares. It’s fine, I’ve got it under control.” He runs out of the room and the adults follow after a heavy moment. He has his sister in his arms shushing her and gently rocking her back to sleep when they get there.


	3. Growing Pains

Tony is the age his sister was when she died and he’s not been taking it that well. He insisted on having a birthday party to prove that he was fine, so he and his basketball teammates and some other kids from class had spent the day at a laser tag place and he’d had a big cake and he was only mildly pissed that Kate had beaten him. He was moody and silent for a few weeks afterward, and when he did speak he was calling Tim ‘Timmy’ or ‘McGeek’ to piss him off, and tugging Abby’s pig tails. Winding Kate up every chance he got. He’d even gotten into it with Gramps and Dad a few times. By twelve Tony had his mask firmly in place, he was loud and annoying and people never looked at him for too long because of it. He was just funny enough that people liked to keep him around and he was popular at school but no one ever thought he went much deeper than that. Except for Kate who could almost always see through it and just pretended she didn’t for his sake or if he got under her skin enough. The adults would look at him funny sometimes, when he wasn’t putting in enough effort to be convincing. But for the most part everyone had accepted that Tony had returned to the fun-loving, troublesome boy he had been before _they_ died. He tried to only think of them as _they_ now, it hurt a little bit less if he didn’t think of them individually too much. He’s in middle school now and it is the first time since he was five years old that he’s in a different school than Kate. He hates it and loves it at the same time. Independence is the only thing he really yearns after so it feels grown up in a fun way but he hates not being able to check on his siblings. 

The truth is, Tony is terrified that maybe twelve is a cursed age for Gibbs children. He has a constant bad feeling in his gut and he’s always a little scared that he’s going to die soon. He’s a bit scared that a tiny part of him doesn’t hate the idea of being with _them_ again. Last week, Tony had had his first kiss, with Wendy Miller in a diner after his team had won a basketball game. He was the first of most of his friends to be kissed and he loved it. Tony had discovered that he was a natural flirt. He’d ridden the high from Friday night to Thursday evening. He’d failed a math test and he knew Dad and Gramps weren’t going to be happy, so his good mood had been soured. He’d stopped really trying in school a year or so ago. He was naturally smart so he’d stopped bothering. He knew that if he worked he could be top of his class like Kate and Abby and Tim and Kel-. But he didn’t care about schoolwork, so he didn’t. He’d only failed the test because he’d been too busy passing flirty notes with Laura behind him. Dad is working and everyone else is already in bed. He climbs out of his window and grabs his bike. He’d discovered late night bike rides a year into Gramps living with them full time. Sometimes it feels like they are the only time he can actually breathe. He rides down to the park and then rides round it a couple of times until he realises that tonight he’s only going to feel heavier. He rides home, keeping his hands in his pockets as much as he can because it looks cool. He stops a block from his house, pulling his hood up and going slowly in case Dad has come home. The driveway is empty so he dumps his bike back down on the front yard and climbs the pipe up to his room. He looks at his bed for a second but can’t stomach it. 

He slips down the hall to _her_ old room. It’s the one thing he still lets himself do. He lies down on the patch of the carpet where her bed was and looks at the stars. He’s crying before he even realises. 

“I had my first kiss, Kel.” He whispers to the stars. His tears redouble in effort when he realises he’ll never know if his nerdy, beautiful, big sister had ever been kissed. He feels a sob tug at his stomach and he curls into the carpet silencing himself by biting his knuckles. When he finally stops, his mouth is dry and his head hurts. He takes a deep breath and rolls back to look at the stars. 

“Thirty-four more days and I’ll officially be older than you ever were.” 

He rolls up, bracing his elbows on his knees. He rubs his eyes with his sleeve and sighs deeply. He slips down the hall back to his room not bothering to change into pyjamas before he rolls into bed. 

He wakes up to Kate shaking him, “You slept through your alarm. Wake up!”

He groans and rolls away, “Go away, Caitlin!” 

“Oh good, your personality came back,” she huffs and swirls out of the room. 

He falls back asleep and is rudely re-woken by Dad pulling his duvet off of him. 

“Up. You’re late.” He’s using the Marine Voice. 

“Daaaaad,” Tony groans. 

“Up. And don’t think I’ve forgotten your math test. I'm looking forward to hearing what you got at dinner tonight.”

He rolls out of bed and heads straight for the shower. After, he goes into the kitchen where Abby, Tim and Kate are finishing their breakfast and packing their bags. 

“You’re late.” Gramps says as Tony shuffles past him and puts a PopTart in the toaster, “And that is not breakfast, Anthony.” 

“Not with that attitude,” He mumbles, and it makes Timmy laugh which swells something in his chest. He finds it hard to believe that when he was Tim’s age _they_ had just died and he was looking after all of them. Tim is so little. Gramps slaps him upside the head.

The toaster pops and he grabs it even though it burns his hands, he skirts the island to avoid Gramps snatching it out of his hands and plants a kiss on each of his sibling's cheeks. He reaches the front door as he hears Gramps shout, ‘Tony, helmet!’ He skids back into the kitchen, PopTart in his mouth, grabs his helmet with a wave and rushes out the door. He doesn’t wear his helmet, he hates helmet hair so it hangs off his handles as he rides one handed, eating his breakfast. He arrives at school a minute before the final warning bell rings. He’s tired and grouchy and even Wendy and Laura waving at him during registration do nothing to cheer him up. At least it’s Friday, he doesn’t mind Fridays, he has Chem and his lab partner is the quiet kid, Jimmy Palmer, and he always lets Tony copy, plus he likes the kid - they actually get on. Then after school he has basketball practice, which is still his safe haven. Then family dinner, which Tony is dreading. 

He falls asleep in English but charms his way out of detention. He and Laura kiss behind the shed at lunch which is kind of fun. She’s not as good as Wendy was and she tastes like watermelon gum which Tony hates. Chemistry is the first time all day where he doesn't feel like bashing his head against the desk because Jimmy has made up a song to remember the order of what they’re learning and it’s actually pretty funny. They couldn’t be more different but there’s something about Jimmy that makes Tony feel very seen. And not like when someone in the family notices his mask has slipped, but just like he’s a real person who doesn’t even wear a mask. It’s a weird feeling and Tony is happy to limit it to Tuesday and Friday Chemistry lessons. Basketball practice seems to end before it’s even begun and he cycles home as slowly as possible, the idea of a house full of people making the hole in his chest left by _them_ burn. 

He stops at the end of the street and throws his helmet on, just in case there are people in the front yard. He's late because he’s been riding so slowly but he finds he doesn't care. He dumps his bike in the front yard and has his helmet off immediately. He calls out, ‘I’m home,’ as he walks in the door. Uncle Tobias emerges first, holding a beer in one hand and Emily hanging from his other like a limpet. 

“‘Bout damn time, kiddo.” He ruffles Tony’s hair and it makes him smile despite his bad mood. He sticks his tongue out at the toddler who giggles. 

Abby comes running from the kitchen and flings herself at him, “Tooo-n-eeey, you took _ages_!”

“Sorry, Abs, practice ran over.” He kisses her cheek and she wrinkles her nose. 

“You stink!”

“Serving in two minutes so shower quickly!” Jenny’s voice travels from the kitchen. 

Tony dumps his stuff in his room and hops in the shower, he doesn’t even notice that the water won’t warm up because he suddenly feels like there’s too many people in the house and he can’t really breathe. He really wants to go lie in _her_ room and look at the stars or maybe go for a bike ride, but he can’t. He hears someone shout his name and he closes his eyes and concentrates on getting his breathing back to normal. He gets out the shower and really wants to throw his sweats on, he’s in his own home after all, but he knows that it’ll just start a fight about dressing properly and he’s too tired for that. He puts on jeans and a semi clean t-shirt.

Everyone is already sitting at the table when he walks into the dining room. There’s a seat waiting for him next to Ducky with Gramps at the head of the table. Dad is directly opposite which means the math test argument will probably be a shitshow. He salutes the table at large as way of hello and sits down, Dad’s eye twitches with discontent but before he can say anything Ducky’s speaking,

“Well done on your win last Friday,” for a moment Tony forgets about the game and blushes at the thought they all know about his kiss, “You were much missed at dinner, my dear boy.”

He mumbles thanks whilst taking the plate of ribs passed to him. They all talk about their weeks and Tony cracks as many jokes as he can and no ones really paying attention which is good because he feels weirdly haunted by Kelly right now so his mask isn’t as secure as he likes it to be on family night. Jackie’s baby kicks and Kate and Abby rush to feel her belly and everyone is very distracted for a moment. When it stops everything settles and Tony knows the second before Dad even asks what’s about to happen. 

“So how was your math test?”

“Hard apparently,” Tony says, trying his hardest not to scowl into his broccoli, he really wants pizza and to not be here right now. 

“What does that mean?” Dad asks, already grouchy. 

“I failed,” Tony says matter of factly. Leon tuts and both Jackie and Jenny elbow him. 

“What’d ya get?” Tim asks, probably just because he loves math and has always been bad at reading the room.

“D minus.”

“You got a D minus?” Dad says barely concealing his anger under all that disappointment. 

“Yeah, but it barely even counts towards my grade for the year and I got an A on the last one so it doesn’t really matter.” He knows the second he says it that it’s the wrong thing to say. 

“And how, exactly, did you go from an A to a D minus?”

Tony shrugs and grins, “Dunno. I guess it’s true what they say, going to class actually does make a difference.”

Dad doesn’t find it funny _at all_ but Tim, Abby and Kate laugh at least. Jenny and Diane smile like they’re trying not to. 

“You’re grounded.”

“Jethro!” comes from several adults around the table.

“What? He needs to take school seriously.” He growls and looks around the table with that ‘test me, I dare you' look.

Abby clings to Tony the whole rest of the evening, trying to cheer him up and Kate keeps shooting him glances like she knows something bigger is up. He does the washing up and excuses himself to go to bed early. He shuts his light off and draws his blind to deter Kate from trying to come and comfort him. He lies on the floor next to his bed and imagines he’s in Kelly’s room looking at the stars. He sticks his headphones and Mp3 player on so he can’t hear the chatter from downstairs. He dreams about _them._

He wakes to someone thumping on his door, he can tell that it's morning from the light around his blind. His whole body is stiff from sleeping on the floor and his jeans have left red marks all over his stomach. The banging continues and he sits up just as Dad opens the door.

“Up, you’re mowing the front lawn before the rain moves in.”

“Daaad,” He moans, rolling onto his knees and then standing, still half asleep, to stretch. 

“Oh good, you’re dressed.” Dad smirks and Tony groans. 

He’s got half the front lawn done when Gramps heads out with Abby and Tim, they have some kid activity like swimming or dance or something that they do on a Saturday morning. Abs shouts that she loves him and he waves at her, still not really awake. The mailman comes and goes waving at Tony and Tony grunts back. By the time he’s finished he’s hot and sticky with sweat and his neck keeps cramping. He drags the mower back to the garage and heads into the house making a b-line for the shower. He stops short at the bottom of the stairs when Dad shouts from the kitchen. 

“Are you really going to walk right over the mail, Tony?” His voice is harsh, he’s definitely still mad about the D minus or the implied class cutting.

“Kate’s right there. I _need_ to shower.” 

“Kate’s got a cold,” she sneezes as if to prove his point. 

He looks at the post on the mat, bit goes into the kitchen and takes a PopTart out of the packet, deliberately testing Dad, “So, who’d you get cooties fro- Hey!” His half eaten raw PopTart is torn from his hands by Dad who throws it in the sink with the breakfast plates, much to Kate’s amusement. Dad tells him to get the mail again. “Second one’s for bastard,” Tony mutters under his breath as he leaves the kitchen. Dad head slaps him, a little harder than normal. “Ow!”

He collects up the mail rubbing the back of his head. He places it on the island in front of his Dad with a little bow. Dad grabs his extended wrist and his face is stoney so Tony gets the feeling that maybe testing him today wasn’t the best idea. 

“Kate, go upstairs.”

“Dad?”

“Your brother and I need to have a talk. Go upstairs.” Kate slides off her stool and looks nervously between Dad and Tony before doing as she’s told.

Tony is tired, he really doesn’t want to have a fight and his chest is tight again and he really doesn't want to have one of his Things in front of Dad. He knows they’re panic attacks, he’d seen one in a film, but he’s Tony and he doesn’t panic, especially not enough to have an attack, so he just calls them Things. 

“This stops today.”

“Huh?” Tony is genuinely confused. 

“I’m sick of your attitude. Show me some damn respect.”

“Respect?”

“You can’t even hand me the mail without acting like a little shit.” Dad’s livid for no reason and it makes Tony defensive.

“This is about the mail?”

“No, Tony. This is about you being unbearable.” 

Dad’s shout reverberates in his head and Tony’s chest tightens in a way that says ‘You’re not going to be able to breathe for much longer.’ He decides to hit where it hurts. “You want my respect? How about you show me some damn affection?” He shouts back.

“Tony-”

“What? I’m not good enough for it? Not like the others. That's it, isn’t it?”

“Tony!”

God his chest is getting really tight now that he’s shouting, “I have to earn it, when the others just get it unconditionally?”

“Tony…” 

“You think I can’t see how disappointed you are in me? You think I don’t see the way your eyes change every time you realise that I’m the best example they’ve got? That I’m not _her?_ ” 

“I care!” Dad yells.

“Then why can’t you stand me?” Tony yells back.

“I care!” Dad near screams it, and smashes a fist into the cabinet behind Tony’s head hard enough for it to drop off the top hinge. They both freeze. 

“Great way of showing it,” Tony’s breathing is now audibly laboured. He pushes past Dad with a shove, “You really are a bastard.” 

He runs to the front door, ignoring Kate calling after him from the stairs and gets straight on his bike. He peddles away from the house as fast as he can even though his hands are shaking and his vision keeps filling with tears and he really cannot breathe. He can’t feel anything other than the mammoth weight on his chest and he’s not even concentrating on where he’s going. The air whips at his face and when he can finally breathe again, he realises that he has no idea where he is. He slows, and rides around, the houses here are small and grotty and all the grass is dead. He takes his hands off the handlebars and lets the bike swerve from side to side on the empty street. His head replays the thump of Dad’s hand against the cabinet in time with his heartbeat. It starts raining, the kind of light but constant drizzle that leaves you soaked in minutes. He doesn’t recognise any of the names on any of the street signs. His chest is still tight and he really wants Mom. And shit, now he’s crying again. He doesn’t want to go home yet but he also doesn’t want to be lost. He keeps riding, trying his best to go in a straight line but these streets aren’t a proper grid system. If he’d just picked up the damn mail on his way in he could be at home in the dry, probably doing chores but chores definitely beat whatever mess is waiting for him at home. He turns and tries to ride back the way he came but the rain is getting heavier and he hadn’t been concentrating for most of the way here so turning back only serves to make him more lost. The rain has been getting gradually heavier. He’s freezing cold and miserable. He comes across a playground so he goes and hides under the slide. He’s shivering and his teeth keep crashing into each other and it’s starting to give him a headache. He thinks about freezing to death, like they do in _Scott of the Antarctic,_ and then tells himself off for being childish and silly. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He knows he’s annoying, he does it on purpose, but he didn’t mean to make Dad hate him. He doesn’t know what to do. When he was younger Gramps had sat him down and told him that it was okay to be a kid, that he didn’t have to be grown up like Kelly, so he had stopped trying. And it had been nicer afterward because it was much less tiring to pretend to be a kid than it was to pretend to be grown up. He doesn’t think he’s really either one. He’s stuck in between, being neither thing. It makes him feel like he’s not a real person sometimes because he acts too immature for his age but he thinks and notices things like an adult. The two don’t naturally coexist, everything he does in life is calculated and it makes him feel like he’s a psychopath. He wishes that someone would tell him who to be so he could just be that person. He’s tired of trying to figure it out on his own. He’s scared to go home. What he said to Dad wasn’t exactly untrue but he doesn’t really mind it that much. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that Dad will brush it under the rug, that he’ll decide it’s too emotional of a topic and it should never be discussed again, like he’s done with _them_. But his gut tells him that's not gonna happen, even if Dad doesn’t tell Gramps, Kate will; and once Gramps knows he is going to be made to talk about it. Tony is not sure that he’ll be able to survive that. He knows people would listen, he knows his Uncles and his Aunt and Gramps and Kate would listen, they might even understand too, but Tony also knows it would feel like throwing up knives and he thinks that the damage that would do to him might just be irreversible. He understands, like innate knowledge, that the cuts are too deep and even Ducky wouldn’t be able to stitch him back together if the band aids come off. He starts crying again and it makes his headache worse but it warms his face up a bit. His chest feels tight again and he knows he’s not going to be able to stop a Thing. 

He’s breathless and tired and he falls asleep under the slide. When he wakes up the rain has gotten heavier and it’s starting to get dark. He’s going to be in so much trouble. He’s probably never going to see the outside of the house again. He gets up and gets back on his bike. It’s raining so hard that the tires struggle to find grip on the pavement but he rides away from the park and desperately hopes that he’ll see a street name that he recognises soon. He doesn’t but he does find a payphone. He has some change in the pocket of his jeans. It rings once before it picks up.

“Special Agent Jenny Shepard.” 

“Hey, Aunt Jenny.”

“Tony! Thank God. Where are you? We’ve all been so worried.”

“Oh,” His chest feels tight and he has to concentrate on just breathing, “Um… I dunno. I’m on the corner of some street called Market Way, at a payphone.” 

“I’m coming to get you.”

“Okay. Thanks, Aunt Jenny,” he hangs up and squats down in the booth to avoid the rain. Water keeps dripping into his eyes from his hair and his boxers are cold and wet inside his stiff, heavy jeans. A puddle forms around his feet. He tries his hardest not to cry while he waits. 

He gets in the car and is surprised to see that the clock on the dashboard says it’s nearly seven. He’s missed dinner. And Lunch. And his breakfast got thrown in the sink. He decides to ignore the fact that he doesn’t remember most of the day. She puts the heat on full blast but he’s still cold and he feels bad about getting the leather of her seat wet. Aunt Jenny is silent for a lot of the journey but she keeps looking at Tony. It’s awkward in a way that it never usually is with Aunt Jenny. She pulls over a couple of blocks away from the house. She keeps the engine on. 

“Your Dad told me what you said,” he hangs his head waiting to see who’s side she chooses, “Tony, sweetie, are you okay?” She brushes his damp hair away from his eyes and he nods. “You can always talk to me, Tony.”

“I’m fine. I was just trying to make him… I dunno I was just trying to make him feel as bad as he made me feel.” Tony is a master at lying by now and he knows that if he just confesses something in a reluctant way, Jenny will think she’s won. 

“Your Dad loves you more than anything.”

“‘Cept for the boat.”

Jenny chuckles, “Except maybe the boat.” 

There’s a beat of silence and he knows she's going to keep prodding until she gets a serious answer, “I know he does. I do. He’s just such a robot sometimes.” 

“Tony, your dad has always been a robot, he was a marine after all. But trust me, he loves you.”

“I know that. Like I said, I was just trying to make him feel bad.” 

“God, you boys,” She tuts, pulling out, “You’re all such neanderthals.” She smiles at him and he huffs out a laugh for her sake.

Being in the car has somehow made him feel colder and his teeth have started chattering again. He tries to stop them because he knows that Ducky will be on him in an instant. He recognises each of their cars parked outside the house. Gramps hugs him the second he’s through the door and he looks up to see his Dad and Uncles all standing in a line and it reminds him of the funeral. They all look like they have something to say and he’s so tired and his chest suddenly feels tight again and he just can’t do that right now.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I got lost.” Dad and Toby open their mouths at the same time but Tony ploughs on, “I’m really tired and cold, can we talk in the morning? Please?”

Somehow everyone looks a bit disappointed at this, Tony wonders if Dad was gunning for round two, this time with an audience. But Dad just nods. The others are all sitting at the top of the stairs, he thought they would be. Abby throws her arms around his neck and nearly sends them both flying back downstairs. 

“I thought you were dead!” She cries, burying her face in his neck. He does the same back.

“I’m sorry, Abs. I’m okay. I promise.” He murmurs.

Tim hugs him next and says that everyone was fighting and Uncle Toby was really angry and kept saying ‘What if he doesn’t come back, Jethro?’ He holds Tim’s chubby little face in his hands and says, “I’m always gonna be here, Tim. Know why?” Tim shakes his head. “‘Cos I love you.” He kisses Tim’s forehead then licks him on the nose making Tim giggle in disgust. He sends the two of them back to bed. He looks up at Kate just in time for her to slap him. It sends a spray of water from his hair onto the wall. 

“No, don’t hold back, please.” He says, knowing sarcasm always works on Kate.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“He’s trying, Tony. A lot harder than you are.” She flounces back to her room, slamming the door.


	4. Unlucky Number

He and Dad don’t really talk about it. Gramps shuts them in the basement together and Dad suggests he sees a therapist and Tony says only if you do too, and they drop the subject altogether. After a while they both apologise and Dad hugs him. It’s awkward and Tony’s brain replays Dad’s fist hitting the cabinet over and over again until the hug stops. He gets a phone call from each Uncle and he reassures each of them that it’s all fine and that they’ve talked it out. He is equal parts proud and sad that they all believe him. Jenny turns up with a Banoffee pie, which is his favourite. He’s grounded until next Sunday. 

He starts sneezing on Tuesday and he complains constantly that Kate has given him her cold. She’s still not talking to him and just leaves the room every time he starts. They’re eating dinner on Wednesday when he makes another joke about it and she snaps, “Maybe, it’s karma.” Dinner is mostly silent after that, even Abby doesn’t say much. He stops complaining about it after that but not because of Kate. He wakes up Thursday morning with a tightness in his chest that tells him today is going to be a bad one and he’s definitely going to have a Thing. He’s exhausted, he has been since he slept on the floor of his room and dreamt about Kelly. He starts to think maybe something is wrong with him because he has this urgent feeling that Kelly is waiting for him. He half expects to see her in every room he enters, even at school. It freaks him out and makes his chest hurt. By lunch break his joints feel painful and he keeps getting goosebumps. He knows he has a fever. He figured out a few years ago when he had tonsillitis that he can tell if a fever is bad by touching something cold - if it sends shooting pain up his arm then it's bad. He can touch the metal leg of the lunch table no problem so he decides it’s not going to be an issue. That’s why he doesn’t tell anyone. That and the fact that he knows it’s his own fault. Like Kate said, karma.

It’s lunch time Friday and he has never felt worse in his life. His body hurts every time he moves and his chest is tight and full of pressure, he has been resisting the urge to cough since he woke up but it’s getting a bit painful. His head is pounding and he feels like he’s floating. He keeps imagining fingers running through his hair, like Mom used to when he was sick, but he’s too tired to be freaked out by it. He naps on a bench, hoping the cool air makes him feel better. He wakes up to the bell telling him he’s late for Chemistry. He gets a tardy slip from his teacher which he crumples into his pocket. Jimmy’s waiting for him at their desk. They’re ten minutes into the lesson and Tony is trying his hardest not to fall asleep but he can’t concentrate either because it’s hot and his chest won’t expand enough for him to take an actual breath. Jimmy turns to him and says,

“Are you aware that you have a fever?”

“Yeah, Jimmy, I got that. Thanks.”

“Okay, just checking.”

They’re halfway through a worksheet when Jimmy turns to him again and says, “I think it’s probably quite a bad fever, Tony. I can feel it coming off of you, which is, you know, not the best sign. Maybe you should go to the nurse?”

“I’m good. Thanks, Jimmy.” 

He waits a bit more and then says, “Maybe you shouldn’t go to basketball practice?”

Tony realises that for the first time in his life he’s not looking forward to basketball. But he’d rather be at basketball than family dinner. Jimmy is looking at him and chewing on his pencil, worry clear in the quirk of his eyebrows. 

“Ya know, Jimmy. I really feel okay. But thanks for checkin in.” Jimmy nods, nervously and goes back to their work. He keeps looking at Tony every few minutes.

Tony does go to basketball. He plays even though he feels like he’s going to pass out and he can’t really breathe. Every time he catches the ball it makes pain shoot up his arms, through his collarbones which feel hollow and into his chest. In the last half hour Coach calls him over and asks what's going on. Tony squints at him through blurred vision and says that he’s just tired. Coach benches him. When he walks out of the gym he sees Jimmy shuffling nervously around the bike rack. He swings his bag over his shoulder, making it jar painfully and goes to unlock his bike. Jimmy twitches and tries to start his sentence a couple of times with no luck.

‘I was studying in the library and… well, you see, I live a block over from you. I thought we could walk together... maybe?”

Tony’s heart swells at the gesture and, ow, that makes his chest hurt. Dinner’s going to be hell. He decides that he isn’t up to riding the bike so he takes Jimmy up on his offer. They get halfway home before the bike is too heavy for Tony so Jimmy takes over wheeling it for him. Jimmy says he should go see a doctor and Tony says that his Uncle is coming over for dinner and he’s a doctor. He doesn’t tell Jimmy that technically Ducky is not a practicing doctor. Tony takes his bike back from Jimmy at the end of his street, his arms feel like jelly but he refuses to admit weakness in front of his family now. He and Jimmy stop at the end of his yard. 

“Thanks for making sure I got home safe. Means a lot.”

“Any time, Tony.” Jimmy smiles brightly, “Hope you feel better!” He and Tony fist bump and Tony barely manages to stop himself from wincing. 

He opens the door and calls out that he’s having a shower. He turns the water to the coldest setting to try and reduce his fever before dinner and uses the sound of the water to conceal a giant coughing fit that makes him feel like he’s just hacked his lungs out. He watches the dark brown mucus swirl in the water before disappearing down the drain. Not great, he thinks. Tony’s quiet at dinner and people keep looking at him and he knows they’re all thinking about last Saturday. He and Kate are still fighting. A particularly violent shiver makes his leg jerk and he accidently kicks her in the middle of Abby’s story. 

“Tony!” Kate shouts, cutting Abby off. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to.” He mumbles, pushing his curry around on the plate. 

She kicks him hard in the shin. It makes pain shoot up his leg and settle in his aching hip. It hurts so much he wants to cry. He feels a plea for Mom form in his mind and quickly silences that thought. He flings a string bean across the table at her in retribution. It lands in her hair, the curry sauce on it making it stick there. 

“You are such a dick!” Kate squeals, extracting the bean from her hair. Jenny chokes on a laugh. 

Dad roars, “Enough! Kate, we don’t use language like that-”

“He k-”

“Kate! You’re grounded until Monday.”

Abby looks round the table with tears in her eyes, “But Dad, then she can’t come to my recital and Tony’s already not coming.” 

“Sorry, Sweetie. See that kids, you’ve upset your sister.”

“Sorry, Kate. Sorry, Abby.” Tobias shoots him a sceptical look from across the table. He obviously suspects that something's up but Tony is too busy trying not to cough into the salad bowl to care. 

They’re serving dessert when four phones around the table go off. It makes Tony’s head hurt and he lets himself whimper just a little bit, which makes his chest hurt. He rubs his navel trying to get it to stop. Dad and all his teammates are all standing and heading towards the door, calling their goodbyes and apologies. Jackie, Diane, Toby and Gramps try to continue conversation but the mood has been soured. They eat their dessert in silence. Emily falls asleep in her ice cream and the Fornell’s leave. Tony offers to read to Tim and Abby so he doesn’t have to do the washing up. He goes to bed earlier than he normally would and drifts in and out of sleep. He wakes up, what feels like every few minutes, coughing. He steals the toilet roll from the bathroom and hacks up the phlegm into it, piece by piece, balling it up and hiding it at the bottom of his trash can until the whole roll is used. He doesn’t hear Dad come home. Gramps lets him sleep for most of the morning. He wakes up before lunch and sneaks some tylenol from Dad’s bathroom. He feels a bit better afterward. Gramps, Abby and Tim leave for Abby’s dance recital. They won’t be back before dinner. Kate and Tony both retreat to their respective rooms after they leave. Tony sleeps, and coughs, and sleeps, then coughs some more and goes back to sleep. 

He wakes a few hours later and his chest hurts so much that he can’t get more than half a breath in and his room is spinning around him. He’s drenched in sweat and his chest hurts a bit more with every breath. Kelly is waiting for him. Wait - what the shit? Where did that come from? Oh my god, does that mean he’s dying. He crawls out of bed closing his eyes to try and lessen the spinning sensation. His knees buckle when he tries to stand and his breath is knocked out of him when he hits the floor. He gets on his hands and knees before he starts choking. There’s something in his throat and he can’t breathe. He hacks until a globule of dark brown goo flies from his lips onto his blue carpet. He uses his nightstand to pull himself up. He leans on the wall as he drags himself out of his room. The floor seems to be moving up and down beneath him like waves. Like he’s walking backwards on a carousel. The wall is so cold against his hand that it makes him shiver. He gets to Kate’s door and he knocks. She doesn’t reply. He leans his forehead against the cool wall. He can feel his chest constricting again. 

“Kate,” he tries to call but it comes as more of a rasp,”Kate, I know you’re mad but I need a favour.”

He hears her footsteps approach the door and she flings it open, “What?”

The speed of the movement makes the world spin like he’s inside the dryer and he feels his butt hit the floor.

“Tony?” Kate is crouching in front of him reaching for his shoulders to steady him.

“Call an ambulance, Kate.”

“What?” She sounds like she’s crying.

“Now.” He starts coughing and it hurts it hurts it hurts. 

…

When he comes back to himself, there’s a pretty nurse helping him into a hospital gown. Kate’s not with him anymore. He has a mask around his mouth and he pulls it off, the difference is immediate and his chest hurts so bad but he feels less feverish than he did before. 

“Where’s Kate?”

The nurse puts the mask back on his face, “Your sister? She’s in the waiting room.”

Tony pulls the mask away again, “Can she come here?”

The nurse sighs and Tony bats his eyelashes at her, “Will you keep the mask on?”

He nods enthusiastically putting it back over his mouth and nose and the nurse leaves, she comes back a few minutes later with Kate in tow. He scoots over and Kate climbs on the bed with him. He hugs her tight and he can feel her relax into him.

He really wants his Dad. And his Mom.

….

He notices that Kate isn’t really sleeping even though she’s gotten under the covers. He’s rearranged all the pillows but he can’t get comfy, which is ridiculous because he slept on the actual floor last week. His chest is tight and painful, and really wants Dad. His chest tightens even more with fear. He tries to get Kate talking because she’s been quiet for a really long time and he needs to know she’s okay so he starts talking about how pretty the Nurse is. His sentences come out kinda panty and Kate doesn’t react much so he stops talking. After a while she turns into him.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

He scoffs, and it hurts to do it. “Kate, come on! Me afraid?”

“You can’t argue your way out of this one, Tony.” She curls into him a bit more, “all we can do here is lie around and hope you get better.” 

“Now who’s afraid?” He pokes her.

“Yeah, I am!” She lets out a huff of air and rolls away from him again, “You would be too if you had half a brain.”

Tony sighs, he regrets how that conversation went already and it makes his chest feel even tighter. He wipes his forehead on his shoulder, he’s getting hot again. He pretends not to notice the Doctor come to the nurses station outside and start talking. He tries to read his lips through the window but he’s facing the wrong way. Tony guesses the news isn’t good from the way that Nurse Emma looks at him. After a few minutes, they come in and hook him up to an IV. Emma tells Kate she needs to step outside and she agrees to stand just outside the door.

“Bedtime snack, Doc?”

“Yep, we’ve crossmatched your blood work so we know which antibiotics to give you.”

“I’m not even gonna pretend to know what that means.”

“Smart kid.”

“You called my Dad?”

“Yes we’ve spoken to him. He’s trying to get a hold of your grandfather.”

Tony flexes his arm with the needle in, it feels weird and cold inside his body and it makes him feel a bit queasy. “He’s at a recital, he’ll have his phone off.”

He glances at Kate in the door and Nurse Emma is talking to her but she keeps looking through the window at Tony. The Doc starts giving him a once over. Tony says something about the football game on the tv above the bed that makes the Doc laugh, when he stops Tony says,

“So, tell me Doc what’ve I got?” He keeps his voice low so Kate won’t hear

“We should wait for your dad, kid.”

Tony scoffs and he needs to stop doing that because it hurts like a son of a gun, “You don’t know my Dad. He’s not gonna come here, he’s gonna solve his case. And I’m guessing from the look on your face that he told you as much, so tell me, Doc, what’ve I got?”

If the Doc sees that Tony has tears in his eyes, he says nothing. “Smart kid.” He sighs and says, “Pneumonia.”

Tony laughs, he didn’t think his karma was that bad.

“Great. So, I’m not gonna die.” The Doc’s face twitches and Tony’s about to ask him about it when Kate rushes in.

“You’re going to die?” Kate cries.

“No,” he wheezes, “I said I wasn’t going to die.”

“God, Tony! Don’t scare me like that!” She picks up a pillow from his bed and thwacks him with it, “Dick!”

“Careful, Kate, you’ll get grounded again.” She levels him with a mediocre impression of the Gibbs-stare. Tears glistening in her eyes that make him turn to the Doc, because he can’t face how scared she looks, “Kate’s grounded for bad language!”

“Tony’s grounded for fighting with Dad!” She blurts out frustratedly. Tony can tell from her particular tone of voice that she is trying very very hard not to cry. 

“I’m sorry, Kit Kat, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m gonna stay here and make your life hell.” She bashes him with the pillow again.

“Kate,” the doctor says and it’s a warning. “Tony, needs his rest, why don’t we try your grandfather again?”

“I’m not leaving him!” She punctuates it with a sneeze, still not over her cold completely. 

“If I catch your cold I’m gonna be so pissed.” He settles back into bed and tries not to let on how tired he is from talking. Nurse Emma says something about Tony needing to rest but Kate won’t leave. She just sits in the chair next to his bed and crosses her arms. He’s never really noticed how much Kate looks like Kelly before now. Or maybe he has but he’s just ignored it. “Twenty-six days,” he whispers to the ceiling.

“What was that, Tony?” Kate whispers back but he’s already falling asleep.

….

Kate’s still there when he wakes up.The nurses at the station keep shooting glances into his room and he’s guessing they don’t want Kate in here. He tries his best not to cough, he doesn’t want to scare her, but his chest is really tight. He thinks there’s something the Doc isn’t telling him. He wants Mom. 

“Bet this is way better than Abby’s stupid dance recital, huh?”

“Shut up, Tony.” 

“Okay.”

He really hopes that the recital ends and Gramps turns his phone on soon. He can’t suppress his cough any longer and it hurts more than anything Tony can remember. Other than being eight years old and told his Mom is never coming back. That hurt more. He tries not to cry. He has that feeling of something blocking his throat again. It feels like mucus but it tastes like iron and Holy Shit he’s scared. He turns his head away from Kate and stares at the blood that splatters his sleeve for only a second before shoving his hand under the covers so she won’t see.

“Thanks for passing on the cold, Kate.” He desperately wants her to leave, he can’t let her see him like this. It’s really getting hard to breathe.

….

He’s sweaty and the bed sheets are itchy and he really cannot breathe. They’re getting him ready for an x-ray and he grabs Nurse Emma’s hand, “You’ve gotta get her outta here. I don’t wan…” He trails off into a painful cough as his chest feels like it’s being squeezed by hot metal, “Wan’er to see.” Nurse Emma brushes his hair back and lays him down. He feels the tears slide from his eyes. Where is Gramps?

“Tony, I need you to take a deep breath for me and hold it.”

“Not sure I can, Doc,” He stops for a breath, “Maybe Emma can do it for me. You look like you have very healthy lungs,” He says to her retreating back. 

….

He’s in and out of it. All his joints ache in a burning way and his limbs feel heavy. His fever’s gone up again. He rouses when he hears Kate cry Ducky’s name and run to the doorway to be enveloped in his arms.

“Kate, my Darling.” He’s never heard Duck use this tone of voice before and it sets alarm bells off in his head but he’s too tired to figure out why.

Ducky comes over and rests his hand on Tony’s head, he mutters some reassurances and says he’s going to talk to the doctor. Kate hovers in the doorway, stuck between following Ducky and staying with Tony. She’s crying. His chest is so painful he’s not even sure it’s part of his body anymore. Oh, and Kelly’s been sitting next to him for, at a guess, a half hour. He knows that she’s probably a hallucination, either stress-induced or from the fever, but he’s kind of glad she’s here. He sort of wishes that he was hallucinating Mom but then he feels bad. Kelly puts her hand on his and he shivers at how cold it is. Tony sees that Kate is distracted by whatever the doctor is showing Ducky outside the room so he turns to Kelly and whispers, 

“I missed ya.”

Kelly smiles, and he’d forgotten how pretty she was, “I missed you too, McTrouble.”

“‘Ow's Mom?”

“She’s good, we miss you all very much.”

“Why’d ya hav’ to go, Kel?”

“Twelve was my unlucky number. Looks like it might be yours too.” She wiggles her eyebrows at him.

“D’ja have your firs’ kiss?” His chest feels like it’s going to explode. He doesn’t hear her answer because he’s coughing, he’s really coughing and he can’t breathe at all because his throat is full of sticky blood and it's choking him. He hears people calling his name and then Emma is sitting him upright and patting his back and the blood keeps choking him but it’s spilling in gloopy spurts into the bowl along with brown phlegm. Tony has never been more scared in his life. He hears Doc send Kate out of the room and he thinks, finally, as he gags around a more solid globule. Eventually it stops and Emma lays him down. He thinks they’ve forgotten to close the door because he hears Kate run into Ducky’s arms crying that Tony is dying and then he hears Dad say “Like hell he is.”

He wonders, for a second, if Dad is a hallucination too, but then he’s there and he’s stroking Tony’s hair which he hasn’t done since the funeral and he says in a voice that is way too emotional to be Dad’s, “Tony, listen to me. Are you listening?”

Tony tries to breathe around the stickiness in his throat but it hurts and it makes tears stream from his eyes, “I’m lis-” He chokes a little and feels some mucus drop from the corner of his mouth, joining the tear tracks down to his pillow. “I’m listening, Dad.” 

“You’re going to be fine. You got that?”

Tony struggles for another breath, the crying has made it harder and then he forgets to breathe all together when he hears Kelly’s voice from his left, “Twenty-six more days, Tones.” He hears his heart monitor whining and then a hand slapping him on the head. He takes a stuttering breath in. 

“I said,” and now Dad is whispering right in his ear, “you will not die.”

“I got you, Dad.”

“Good.” He kisses Tony on the forehead then moves away. Tony can’t help but cry out at the loss of contact and doing so forces his breath out of him excruciatingly. He distantly hears Dad saying ‘Easy, son’, and feels a strong hand encompass his. He’s aware that Kelly’s hand is no longer hovering over his other one. He feels the hole in his chest widen just a bit more and it’s a completely different kind of pain. 

….

Tony wakes up to the sound of voices around him. He fakes sleep.

“I thought pneumonia wasn’t that bad.” Gramps sounds tired.

“They think he’s had it for a while. That the complications had already arisen before he came to the hospital.” Ducky responds sadly.

“He’s twelve. You would’ve thought that he’d have healthy lungs.”

“His lungs weren’t really the problem.” There’s a patch of silence and Tony images Gramps is staring at Duck like he’s crazy.

He nearly jumps when he hears Dad’s voice say, “He was coughing up blood, Duck.”

“I know, Jethro. I’m not denying that his lungs are damaged, possibly permanently, what I’m saying is, the risk of complete respiratory failure was fairly low. It was the fever that was the real problem. They couldn’t get it to go down no matter what they tried. We’re lucky it broke before he started seizing or any permanent brain damage could occur. His kidneys are already starting to return to proper functioning.” His kidneys? What did his kidneys have to do with pneumonia, that was his chest, right? He hears Ducky approach the bed and place his hand in Tony’s sweaty hair, “We are very lucky that he is such a strong boy.” His voice is much heavier than it was just a moment before and Tony feels guilt sweep over him.

Someone knocks on the door and he hears Leon say, “I’m gonna take the kids back to my place for the night, but Caitlin wants to know if she can stay here?”

Dad says no so Tony gives up his ruse and makes them all jump when he says, “Please c’n she stay, Da’?”

...

He falls asleep again after that and wakes up to Kate kissing his forehead. He keeps his eyes’ closed and says, “Jus’ like Sleepin’ Beauty,” his voice is slurred with sleep, “‘cept no incest.”

She giggles and then it turns into a sob. He wraps and arm around her even though his muscles still ache with fever. 

“S’rry f’r scarin’, you K… love you”

“I love you too. You’re my hero.”

Dad’s voice rings out from the door, “Sleep, both of you.” Tony closes his eyes and feels Dad sit next to him and start carding a hand through his hair. Tony tries to curl towards him, but Dad puts a hand on his chest to stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably full of medical inaccuracies, sorry!


	5. On the flip side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter because it's mainly the Gibbs talking about their feelings - not something they are very good at.

Tony’s not been home long before he’s already bored of everyone hovering around him. Dad’s taken time off work and Ducky has been staying over most nights, sleeping on the pull out couch which Tony thinks is a bit unfair given his age. Tony had offered to sleep there instead and Gramps had praised him for being selfless but told him no. He didn’t say that he’d actually offered because walking up and down stairs makes him feel like he’s going to pass out. Gramps, Dad, Ducky and Tobias sit him down and start a lecture about the importance of communication and reaching out for help. 

“Anthony, the doctors think you must have been sick for several days before you were brought in. It would have been a lot less serious if you had received medical treatment earlier. Why on earth didn’t you come to one of us?”

He’s too tired to think about his response, he just opens his mouth, “I thought it was just one of my Things.”

The four men exchange looks, Tony thinks about the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Dad says, “One of your things?”

Tony groans, stupid sick brain. He’s backed himself into a corner now, he’s going to have to just tell them. The idea isn’t as horrifying as it had been two weeks ago, he still doesn’t love it though. He rests his head on his hands. He’s tired all the time.

“They’re like, I dunno, like a panic attack… or something?” Dad raises his eyebrows in a ‘is that all you’re going to say?’ kind of way. Tony squirms in his seat, “My chest feels tight and then I, like, hyperventilate, or whatever.” He looks down at the table and starts picking at the frayed edge of the place mat in front of him. “It just felt like I was about to have one of those for a few days, which happens sometimes so I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“What?” Gramps says. He sits down and adds, “How long have you been getting pan- Things for?”

Tony shrugs, not looking away from the place mat. “A while, I guess.” And he’s vaguely aware that this is the most honest conversation he’s had with the adults of his family for a long while. 

“Kiddo,” Tobias stops, sighs, gets a beer out of the refrigerator even though it's like two pm on a weekday and he probably has to go back to work soon. “I feel like you’re not getting the message here. Why haven’t you told us about your things?”

He does his best puppy eyes and his worst ever attempt at changing the subject, “Can I have some of your beer?” He’s tired, give him a break.

“No. Talk.” Tobias says leaning against the island. 

“It didn’t seem like any of your business. They’re  _ my  _ Things.”

“Tony-”

“Okay! 'Cos we don’t talk about that kind of thing. We never talk about… the accident," he swallows, "We just don’t talk about feelings and I was handling them fine. I am handling them fine.”

Gramps sighs and puts his head in his hands. Tobias puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“Tony, we think you should see someone.”

“Daaad,” Tony whines, burying his head in his arms.

“You need to talk to someone, and if it’s not us then maybe it should be a therapist.”

“I don’t like talking. I do things. I’m a doer.”

“Yeah, you do things like nearly die from untreated pneumonia,” Toby snipes.

“Touché.”

“Tony, can you take this seriously, please?” Gramps asks and he sounds so tired and so old that Tony looks at him and nods, swallowing a lump in his throat. 

“Sorry. It’s just, this is all a bit hypocritical, don’t ya think? I really don’t feel comfortable talking to a stranger about my feelings.”

“But you clearly don’t feel comfortable talking to us about your feelings, my boy.” 

“Well what if I tried to? What if I promised to talk to you all when I need help? And then if that doesn’t work for you, I’ll go see a therapist.”

“Tony-”

“Please, Dad?” He knows he sounds desperate but he feels it. He just doesn’t need some guy with a notepad and pen and a metronome telling everyone that he’s crazy because his Mom died.

“Fine. For now.”

…

Two days later, Tony wakes up to Dad bringing him chicken soup. He is sick of chicken soup. Dad gives him the tray and then instead of leaving like he usually does he sits at the foot of Tony’s bed. 

“Tony, when you were in the hospital, Caitlin mentioned, and I heard, you said something about twenty-six more days?”

“Fifteen now.”

“Fifteen?”

“Fifteen days. Then I'll be twelve years and one-hundrend-and-fifty-two days old and I'll officially have been on this earth for longer than she was."

Dad doesn’t say anything. Just puts his head in his hands. Tony’s not sure why he said it, maybe because he’s trying to honor his promise to tell people how he feels.

“You have your boat. I have my countdown. Kate has her drawings. Abby has a little shrine in the back of her closet-”

“Abby has what now?”

“She’s made a shrine with some of their stuff from the attic. Don’t worry I made her swap the real candles for fake ones.”

“Abby built a shrine and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Why, you wanna visit it? Look, what I’m saying is that we all have our ways of dealing, and maybe they’re not as healthy as talking to shrink, but they help.”

“What about Tim?” 

“Trust me, you don’t want to know about Tim.”

“Tony.”

“Fine. He writes stories and then at the end he always kills off the main characters in a car crash.” Dad pinches his nose and looks suddenly exhausted. “Maybe we should think about getting _him_ professional help.”

“Tony,” Dad sighs. They’re silent for a long time and Tony keeps expecting Dad to leave. “What happens after the countdown ends? How do you ‘deal’ then?”

Tony swirls the spoon around in his now cold soup. He doesn’t really want to tell Dad about Kelly’s room. It seems a bit too personal to share but he just outed all his siblings deepest secrets so he guesses it’s only fair. He wants to keep karma on his side from now on.

“I lie on the floor in Kelly’s room and it makes me feel better. Sometimes I sit in the closet too because it still smells of her a bit.” 

Dad clasps his hands in his lap but doesn’t say anything. Tony eats his cold soup. It’s even more gross when it’s cold. Dad is staring at something on the floor and Tony expects him to says something about Tony's dirty laundry but he realises that Dad is staring at a stain in the carpet that must be from his mucus. 

“Why’d ya get rid of all their pictures?”

Dad doesn’t take his eyes off of the stain, “Because they were too painful to look at.”

“Would you have gotten rid of all my pictures, if I’d died?”

Dad is still staring at the stain, “Don’t talk like that, Tony,”

“Sorry. I just… I wouldn’t want you to just remove all traces of me from the house.”

“Then don’t die.”

“Yeah, okay, Dad. Sounds like a plan.” Tony huffs, he doesn’t know what he was expecting.  Some TLC maybe. 

He puts the tray on the floor and rolls over to look out his window. Dad picks it up and goes to the door and stops. 

“I won't survive losing you too.”


	6. Oh, brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a little bit lighter this chapter. Warning that there is some implied homophobia in this chapter.  
> ...
> 
> Also, if you're interested this whole fic is loosely inspired by the song 'A Better Son/Daughter' by Rilo Kiley. It's not actually relevant to the story so you don't have to listen but it's a song that I love a lot.

The countdown ends and it changes everything. Not straight away. In fact, being twelve years and one-hundred-and-fifty-two days old feels exactly the same as being twelve years and one-hundred-and-fifty-one days old. But from that point on Tony realises that milestones in his life will be forever haunted. His first day of 8th grade, his first day of high school. Any excitement he feels is lost in the thought that Kelly never had a first day of eighth grade or high school. He knows that everyone feels it. Like when Ducky had said “Your first day of high school. I hope Franklin High is prepared for the mayhem that is the Gibbs children.” And everyone had sort of realised that Franklin high should have had it’s first Gibbs child four years ago and that she should be starting college this semester. It’s a bit like the first kiss thing for Tony. Except different because he knows for sure that Kelly never had a thirteenth birthday or any of the other stuff he’s going to do during the whole rest of his life. Except die. Kelly definitely checked that one off the bucket list. He doesn’t know which is worse, knowing she didn’t for sure, or forever wondering if she did experience this thing or that. He gets used to the semi-constant undercurrent of Kelly in everything he does after a while. Sort of.

...

  
  


Tony’s halfway through his first semester in high school and life is weirdly stable. That is until he finds a lipstick stain on Dad’s shirt when he’s doing the laundry. It’s definitely Aunt Jenny’s. The woman is as good as his mother, he knows what shade of lipstick she wears. He thinks about what a good mood Dad has been in recently and decides he doesn’t mind. It’s a bit gross but he doesn’t mind. He tells Jimmy, because he tells Jimmy everything. Jimmy says he’s guessing Tony hasn’t talked to his dad about it. Tony says of course not. Dad would probably kill him if he admitting to knowing what sex was. Jimmy nods and is silent for a while which tells Tony that he’s thinking of the right way to say something. Then Jimmy says that he knows Tony wants Dad and Jenny to be happy, and Jimmy does too, but what happens if, like, it ends badly. Tony hadn’t thought about that. He knew for sure that they hadn’t told the team because Jackie and Leon kept trying to set Dad up on blind dates. Tony really doesn’t want to ruin Dad’s good mood, but now that Jimmy’s said it, Tony can’t help but think of every way that this could go wrong. Every way that this could tear their carefully constructed family apart. 

Tony decides to wait and not say anything. He manages to wait three days until family dinner. But then Dad comes back from helping Jenny with dessert smelling of her perfume and Tony decides that waiting is no longer an option. He really doesn’t want to have this conversation because the thing is, he and Dad have kind of stopped talking about their lives and feelings and stuff again. He’d stuck to his promise and he does talk, usually to Aunt Jenny. He’s not an idiot, he knows that anything he says to her she relays back to Dad. Which, actually, makes it weirder to think about them having s-e-x. He decides he needs some liquid courage. He sneaks a half drunken can of beer from the kitchen whilst Tobias and Leon are arguing about baseball. He downs it in the downstairs bathroom then sneaks it into the trash. He feels slightly dizzy but not in a bad way. He waits until everyone has left or gone to bed. He knows Dad is in the basement. Tony picks up a polishing cloth and begins to work at the wood on the opposite side of the boat to Dad. They work in silence for half an hour before Tony can feel the effects of the beer start to dissipate and he realises it’s now or never.

“You know, if anything happened between you and Aunt Jenny this family would fall apart.”

Dad stops polishing and looks at Tony with his eyebrows in his hairline. “Wanna elaborate on that?” He asks, amused.

“I’m just saying that maybe sleeping with your partner isn’t the smartest decision. Aren’t the rules about that kind of thing?”

“And what makes you think I’m sleeping with Jen?”

“Well, for one, you just called her Jen, which you never do. And secondly you smell of her perfume and her lipstick was on one of your shirts.” 

“You ever thought about law enforcement, Tones?”

“Only negatively.”

Dad laughs and it’s a nice sound that Tony realises he’s missed. That he’s going to miss more if Dad goes back to being sad because of this. 

“I know what I’m doing, Kiddo.”

“Hope so, Dad.”

They work on the boat in silence for a while longer before Dad tells him to go to bed. He ruffles Tony’s hair and Tony can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. He doesn’t think he’s even still tipsy from the beer. Just happy. And if, when he’s at the top of the stairs, he hears Dad open the drawer with the flask in he ignores it because he’s determined to go to bed happy for once. 

Dad’s good mood continues and Tony worries that his warnings haven’t been heeded. He’s going to lose everything again. But then he has bigger things to worry about because Tim won’t let Tony touch him. He gets it at first, when it was about being kissed on the cheek. Tim’s ten and maybe it’s not the coolest thing to be kissed by your big brother, but Tony has always been better at physical affection than he has at words. It stabs in his chest and it’s a bit too close to that gaping hole in him left by Mom and Kelly for comfort, but he can deal with it. But then he won’t hold his hand, even when they’re crossing the street. Tony tries to explain that Tim shouldn’t care what other people think, but Tim just twists his face like he’s eaten a lemon and shoves Tony in the stomach. Next the hugging goes and Tony starts lying in bed at night thinking about how he used to lie in Tim’s bed and cuddle him to sleep every night because he only wanted Tony and nobody else to do it. And for the first time in a while, he cries about a sibling that isn’t Kelly. He asks Tim if he’s done something wrong. He knows he picks on the kid but he doesn’t think he’s crossed any lines recently. 

Tim just says, “It’s not like you’d ever understand,”and slams his bedroom door in Tony’s face. 

Tony turns to find Kate leaning in the doorway to her room, arms crossed and eyebrows raised in a way that makes her look creepily like Dad. “Nice going, Tony.”

He rolls his eyes to the ceiling and hangs his shoulders in defeat. They talk about it later and Kate doesn’t know what’s going on either. He tries Abby next. She says she doesn’t think that Tim has many friends, he’s assured her that he’s okay but she can’t be sure because she’s in middle school now and Tim is all alone. Tony tries asking Tim once more but accidentally calls him Timmy which makes Tim lash out and smack Tony’s balls. Tony goes back to the drawing board. He’s still mulling over whether or not to involve Gramps when Tim comes home with a black eye. 

“Woah, woah, woah! What happened there, Obi Wan?”

Tim turns towards him with a ferocity that Tony can’t quite compute because this is Tim. His kind and sweet Tim. His kind and sweet Tim screams, “I like Star Trek not Star Wars!”

Which makes Tony freeze for a minute because he was not expecting that to be the part that got Tim rile up. 

“Sorry, Tim. I was just trying to cheer you up,” he says, trying to put his hands on Tim’s shoulders. 

Tim shakes him off savagely, “Don’t touch me!”

“Okay. Okay, Tim, I’m not gonna touch you.” Tony puts his hands up and backs away, all humour gone from his voice. “But, you need to put ice on that eye because it looks pretty bad, okay?”

Tim starts crying and Tony  _ needs  _ to hug him. He waits for Tim to start walking first and follows him. When he turns he sees Gramps staring at them. He catches his eye and Tony’s shrug is equal parts ‘don’t look at me,’ and ‘fix this please.’ Tim lets Gramps put a hand on his shoulder and Gramps and Tony exchange another look. Tony swallows the lump of emotion in his throat.

“Guess I’ll just- I’ll be in my room if you need me.” He walks away, shooting Tim another glance over his shoulder. 

Kate comes up a little while later and chucks him a can of Cola from the doorway. “He’s okay. Well, he’s stopped crying anyway.” Tony swirls his finger around his eye area and Kate goes on, “Doesn’t look like he has a concussion but Gramps is going to call Ducky later. He has bruises all over,” she looks down and fiddles with her own can, “but nothing serious.” She comes and sits on his desk chair and he sits up facing her. “He won’t say who did it.”

“I’m gonna kill them.”

“Tony-” she scolds

“No, Kate, I’m really gonna kill ‘em.”

“You’re going to kill a ten year old?” She asks skeptically.

“Some of them might be eleven.”

She just shakes her head and goes back to fiddling with her Cola can. He opens his but doesn’t drink it. 

“I knew something was up with him.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Think I should try talk to him again?”

“He’s watching TV with Abby, better wait until just before Dad comes home.” He nods and they sit drinking their Cola in silence. Kate starts correcting the Biology homework he’d left on his desk. 

When it hits five he goes downstairs. He leans against the entrance to the living room. Tim and Abby are curled into each other and Tim has a couple of ice packs. It makes Tony’s heart melt and blood boil at the same time. Abby catches his eye and he nods towards the kitchen. She stumbles over her excuse of getting some juice and retreats. She grabs Tony’s arm and whispers be gentle and then she’s gone. Tony sits on the couch, giving Tim plenty of space. He’s too tense to relax into the cushions so he sits on the edge of the seat, head down and hands clasped in his lap. He feels like Dad. Tim stays watching the tv. Tony sighs and reaches for the remote to turn it off. 

“I know you’re mad, but can you just tell me that you’re okay?”

Tim looks straight ahead, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine, Tim.”

“I’m fine,” he says again but he sounds like he’s crying.

“Did you fight back?” Tony already knows the answer, Tim’s hands seem to be the only part of him that doesn't have bruises. 

“No.”

“Why not? You gotta fight back.”

“They held me down.”

“Who’s they?”

Tim remains silent, other than his breath hitching.

“Who’s they, Tim?”

“Some guys from the basketball team.”

Tony sucks in a breath, “Is that why you won’t let me hug you?”

Tim sobs and Tony has to physically restrain himself from reaching out. He wants to cry too but this is not about him.

“Tim, did you think I was going to,” He bobs his head down, looking at the floor so Tim can’t see the way his face crumples. “Do you think  _ I’d  _ hurt you?”

In his peripheral vision Tony sees Tim shake his head vehemently, “No, Tony! No.”

Tony breathes a sigh of relief. 

“It’s… they kept saying…”

“Kept saying what, Tim?”

“Saying I was gay.”

“Oh,” and it all clicks into place. “Well, you know, Tim, if you are-”

“I’m not!”

“Okay. But it would still be okay if you were. Which means that it can’t be much of an insult, right?”

“You don’t get it, Tony! You’re cool.”

And yeah, Tony’s pretty popular at school. People like guys on the basketball team. Tony had decided he really didn’t care about popularity though, somehow that’s made him even cooler. The fact the Lucy Buffet gave him a hand-job and let him feel her boobs at a party over the summer hasn’t hurt either. So maybe he’s never been in Tim’s situation, but he’d been on the receiving end of plenty of fists.

“Right,” he admits and he hates how helpless he feels. “Thing is, Tim, I can’t let this fly.”

“I can fight my own battles, Tony.”

The part of him that is so well trained at playing the obnoxious clown wants to say ‘Sure, looks like it’, but the last thing Tim needs is Tony being an ass too. So he pushes it down. He hates taking his mask off but he needs Tim to understand that this is the truth, “I know, but you don’t have to. I’m here to do it for you. ‘N I’m always going to be here for you.” 

He bumps their shoulders together and Tim looks at him with his huge eyes and Tony dreads the day that Tim grows into them. Tony feels his head nod slightly of its own accord and then Tim practically tackles him. They end up in a heap half on the couch, half off. Tim is sobbing and clinging to Tony like his life depends on it and Tony has never felt more certain that it does in fact depend on him. When Tim’s stops crying Tony shifts them more securely onto the couch, Tim on top of him. Tony rests his head in Tim’s hair and squeezes his arms tight around Tim’s torso to make sure he’s listening. Then he whispers,

“I’m sorry I let it get this bad.” And he is. He doesn’t for a second blame Tim for not telling him. He blames himself for not picking up on the signs earlier. That’s his job. This is on him.

Gramps goes to talk to Tim’s principal after school one day and Tony goes with him. Gramps still doesn’t know who did it. But Tony does so he begs off and goes to watch the basketball team practice. Tony knows that adults aren’t always the best people for solving playground problems but he knows these kids. He’s played basketball with people just like them for as long as he can remember. His old coach claps him on the back and sits next to him on the bleachers throughout the practice. Tony relishes the way the younger kids look at him. He’s not one to brag, but he’s a pretty big name around here, he’s the only freshman to make it onto the high school team in seven years. Tim meets him at the end and Tony makes a show of slinging his arm around his shoulders when they go over to talk to the coach. To Tim’s credit he manages not to look nervous or uncomfortable despite the audible whispers from the boys on the team. When the coach leaves Tony approaches the gaggle of boys.

“How’d you do that? Coach Burne hates everyone.” One of them asks in awe.

Tony smirks, “Oh that’s nothing. You should see how much Coach Marlow up at the middle school loves me.”

“Really?” One of them with a piggy nose says.

“Oh yeah. He’d even listen to me if I told him not to let someone on the team. Especially if it was ‘cos they were a bully. Boy does Coach Marlow hate bullies!”

They all look at him in shock and he can see them doing the math in their head and deciding that the threat is real enough. Expect for one of them.

“Ooh, I’m so scared. Seriously, Tiny Tim, I can’t believe you brought your brother to try and protect you. Fa-” Tony decks the kid. 

They end up in the principal’s office, and Tony never thought he’d be back in his elementary school’s principal office. He, Gramps and Tim sit to the left and the kid and his parents sit to the right. With the principal sitting behind her desk in the middle, like a judge. Coach and the school security officer hover at the back. They argue back and forth and the kid gets through half of the principal's tissue supply before his nose stops bleeding. Then the kid’s mom mentions pressing charges and Tony says,

“You wanna talk about pressing charges? Tim, why don’t you show them the damage Golden Boy over there did to your ribs?”

And that seems to shut everyone up. The kid gets detention for bullying and Tony gets grounded for a month. They both have to apologise, him to the kid and the kid to Tim. It’s like pulling teeth. Gramps says he’s very disappointed in Tony but the way he pats him on the shoulder on the way out says differently. He’s half doing his homework on his bed later when Kate shows up with a bag of marshmallows. She sits on his desk chair and swirls around a few times. Then she holds the bag out to him and says,

“I can’t believe you actually punched a ten year old.”

“Like you wouldn’t have.”

“You can’t fight hate with hate.”

“You should have heard the crunch his nose made when I hit him.”

“Was it satisfying?” She asks excitedly, and she’s not fooling anyone, she definitely would’ve punched the kid. He nods.

“You think Tim’s gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. He’ll probably just repress it with all his other childhood trauma until it results in intimacy issues when he’s an adult, so I think we have a few years before we have to worry about it.”

Tony laughs and flicks a marshmallow at her. She swats it away and her eyes are light and it makes Tony feel like he’s floating on a cloud.

“At least you and Abby can keep each other company while you’re grounded.”

“What? Why’s Abby grounded?”

“You haven’t seen her?”

“No, Gramps sent me straight to my room. What she do?”

“She dyed her hair black!”

“She did what?!” He says already scrambling off the bed and racing for the door, Kate right behind him cackling at his excitement.


	7. Bury your happiness, like treasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I struggled to get this chapter to be what I wanted so it took a little bit longer.

Tony’s team wins the semi-finals in sophomore year. Jenny takes him out for a celebratory dinner at a fancy French restaurant. Tony appreciates the gesture. He doesn’t understand it though. Jenny knows that Tony would much rather celebrate at the greasy Italian pizzeria downtown. Jenny goes to the bathroom and comes back with a tube of lip balm she forgot to give back to the girl she borrowed it from. She makes Tony go over to the table and return it, feigning embarrassment. It raises Tony’s hackles, he can tell she’s up to something. She’s been acting weird recently. All thoughts of Jenny go out of his head when he sees the girl. She is so beautiful, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen a girl this beautiful before. He exchanges the lip balm for a number and smiles giddily every time he thinks about her sparkling blue eyes. 

Her name is Jeanne and they go on their first date a week later. She is passionate and fiery and she loves his movie references and Tony thinks he falls in love with her then and there. He goes to Jimmy’s house after and lies on his bedroom floor declaring his love for her until it hits one AM and Jimmy rolls over and begs him to go to sleep. Tony takes things slow. They don’t do anything more than kiss for a month and Jimmy says, “Wow, you really like this girl, huh?” And he does. He likes her enough to tell his family about her. Sort of. He doesn’t tell anyone but Kate her name because he doesn’t want Tobias or Leon to get weird and run a background check on her. And yeah, okay, part of the reason he tells them is because Kate gets suspicious about the amount of time he’s been spending at Jimmy’s house (his go to over) and tries to interrogate poor Jimmy who has always been a pretty bad liar. Abby gets obsessed. She follows him around the house asking questions every waking hour. She is only encouraged by his silence. Tony thinks she’s jealous that he’s spending his time with someone else. Gramps and Dad sit him down for The Talk. He sits quietly and nods and doesn’t tell them that he lost his virginity in freshman year to Bella Hunter. 

Tony is not a natural romantic. He’s great at flirting and flattering. He’s amazing at kissing and sex (or so he’s been told), but he does not know much about roses and chocolates. He goes to Aunt Jenny. Aunt Jenny, it turns out, is a romantic genius. Tony is happier than he’s ever been. He doesn’t even think about the fact that Kelly never had a first boyfriend. Much.

...

He turns sixteen and has a big family dinner. Uncle Tobias smuggles him into the backyard for his “First sip of beer.” Tony suppresses his laughter and drinks the small glass handed to him slowly, pretending it's too bitter for his liking. Dad catches them. He goes to head slap Tony but Tony is quick to remind whose birthday it is, which makes Dad smile and head slap Tobias instead. Abby has made him a cake with way too much sugar and sixteen black candles. Tony thinks that's a bit morbid but he loves her for it. He refuses to give Jimmy a slice in case it kills him immediately. They open presents after dinner, all squeezed into the living room. The Fornell’s give him a painting by Emily in a spaghetti frame, also made by Emily, plus some DVDs. Em wraps her arms around Tony when he hugs her and she decides to stay there for the rest of the gifts. He makes a show of struggling with the tape on each gift until she takes over, giggling. Tony can hardly believe that she’s eight now and vows to do whatever he can to keep her this young and innocent. Uncle Leon gives him a book about SAT prep and says it’s never too early to start thinking about. Jackie flushes with embarrassment, swats him in the chest and promises that he will not be put in charge of gift buying again. Kayla says it sucks. Ducky gives him some collectable basketball cards but Tony thinks the real gift is the rambling story he lurches into explaining how they came to be in his possession. Dad and Gramps give him a mobile phone. Jenny gives him her car. Dad goes ballistic.

“Don’t you think giving my kid a car is the kind of thing you should run by me first, Jen?”

“You’re just mad I outdid your gift, Jethro!”

“She didn’t, Dad. I love my phone.”

“Tony!” They both shout. “This isn’t about you.” Dad continues.

“Right,” he says and goes back into the living room to wait it out in awkward silence with everyone else. 

Dad eventually decides he can keep the car but the atmosphere is slightly ruined. Tony still goes to bed on cloud nine. His family is far from perfect, but he wouldn’t change them for the world. He and Jimmy sneak out his bedroom window once everyone is asleep. Jimmy presents him with a bottle of chocolate flavoured Vodka. It looks disgusting and Tony knows that it’s stolen from Mrs Palmer’s drinks cabinet. 

“Your mom really shouldn’t have, Jimmy.” He smirks, Jimmy just smiles his goofy smile and Tony hugs him, not even bothering to bash his back in a manly way. 

They ride their bikes to Jeanne’s where a party is already in full swing. Her dad travels a lot for business so her house is usually empty. He’s met with a chorus of cheers when he enters. He only stops dancing to sneak off to Jeanne’s room for an hour. He tells her he loves her and she says it back. He swears his head is going to explode with happiness. His cheeks hurt from smiling.

Everyone crashes out at around four AM and Tony is left wide awake, sitting between his snoring best friend and his girlfriend curled up with a hand over his leg. He hangs his head and tries to take a deep breath. He’s holding his new phone in his hands, flipping it open and closed. He got it out to text someone but his drunken brain hadn’t been entirely clear on who until he’d typed the words 'She said she loved me,’ and he’d realised it wasn't Jenny or Kate he’d been going to send it to. It wasn’t even Kelly. He wanted to tell Mom. He tries to suck in another breath. He struggles to remember what Mom really looked like. He can’t picture her when he tries, he hasn't been able to for a while. She’s a jumble of photos and memories all smudged into one and not quite right. His breath is coming out in short puffs and he rubs his navel in an attempt to alleviate the growing ache. Suddenly there’s an inhaler in front of him. He takes it, limbs moving in slow motion, and fumbles with it clumsily until a hand comes over his and helps him depress it. When he can breathe again he looks over to find a bleary eyed Jimmy, his hand still on Tony’s and the inhaler. 

“Where’d you get this? I haven’t used one in like three years.”

“I always keep one with me.”

Tony wipes the tears in his eyes away with the back of his hand and gives the inhaler back to Jimmy.

“You good now?”

“Yeah, I’m good now. Thanks Jimmy.” Jimmy just rolls over and is snoring again in seconds.

They sneak back in through the window in time to hear Dad’s morning alarm go off from down the hall. 

…

Tony passes his driving test first try and starts driving Kate to school. He makes her get the bus home so he can pick up Jeanne from her school across town everyday. His life has pretty much been bliss for six months. Then Jeanne surprises him with dinner with her Dad.

...

There’s sweat dripping down the back of his neck and it’s annoying enough to wake him up. He swipes at it and his hand comes away red. Well that explains the headache. He’s slumped at the side of a road in dry grass. His sneakers are covered in dust and drops of blood. He doesn’t know the road he’s on. How’d he get here? He’d been with Jeanne and then… and then he wasn’t sure. Images of people and places flicker through his brain but they leave too fast for him to recognise anyone and make the sledgehammer in his skull hit ten times harder. He rolls on to all fours then staggers up. The movement makes the world sway, like he’s looking out from the inside of a magic-8 ball, and he nearly goes down again. He rights himself at the last minute. He takes two steps forward. His stomach flips and he lurches forward, puking up a meal he doesn’t think he remembers eating. The vomit is stringy and mostly bile and it burns his nostrils until tears form in his eyes. He stands again and staggers away from the mess. He pats down his pockets for his phone but it’s not there. Dad’s gonna be pissed. He thinks his best bet is to keep walking until he finds a payphone. Or a person. He keeps walking, one foot in front of the other, trying his hardest not to think about the sensation of his skull splitting open and bits of his brain dribbling out. He’s pretty sure that’s what’s happening back there. It’s the only explanation he can think of as to why it hurts so much. 

He blinks and he’s on a road he doesn’t recognise. It’s lined with perfect lawns and minivans. There’s a street sign but he can’t get his eyes to connect to his brain and make sense of the blurry letters. The harder he tries, the more they swim over each other. He keeps going. One foot in front of the other. He thinks there must be something wrong with his head, because, Holy Shit, it feels like he’s dying. His right knee keeps trying to buckle under his weight and he is vaguely aware of a simmering pain all along the right side of his body but it gets swept under the pain in his head. A car horn sounds somewhere in the distance and it reverberates in his head until he physically can’t think of anything else. He comes back when he feels his knee hit the sidewalk with a crack. He slumps to the ground and cries. He cries even though it makes his head feel it’s exploding over and over again with every shuddering breath. He feels a hand on his face and he looks up. It’s Mom. He knows somehow that this probably isn’t a good thing but he can’t remember why. He’s so happy to see her he doesn’t even care. He wouldn’t even care if it means the apocalypse is nigh. He tries to slump forward onto her shoulder but it doesn’t work. She strokes his sweaty hair away from his face and wipes at the blood dripping into his eye. She holds his chin in her hands and smiles and it’s so beautiful. He smiles back and doesn’t care that it hurts.

“You’ve got to keep going, honey.”

“H’rts, Mom.”

“I know, baby, but you’re nearly there.” She pulls him to his feet.

“Near’wh’re?”

But she’s gone and he’s standing alone on a street that he doesn’t recognise again. Except, actually, the house on the corner looks kind of familiar. He knows it’s not his neighbourhood but his feet are carrying him down the side street and it doesn’t seem wrong. He turns up a driveway. He's not sure he knows this house but through the pain his head is telling him this is the place. He nearly goes down but he catches himself on the hood of the car. He gets to the door but he doesn’t have the energy to lift his arm to knock. As if God was reading his mind the door is yanked open.

“I’ll call you as soon as we-” The words swim around just out of Tony’s reach and then the man looks out and freezes, and oh, this makes sense. “Tony!”

Tobias pulls him into a hug and Tony wants to cry with happiness. 

“Where have you been?”

“Dunno, go’los’.” His words slide into each other and swirl in his ears. “Th’k I hit m’ead.”

Tobias is looking at him seriously, holding his head between his hands like Mom had. Wait, what? Mom’s dead. His head is turned slowly one way and then the other, “Yeah, Kiddo, I think you did. Diane call Gibbs, get him to meet us at the hospital. Come on, Tones.”

Tony falls asleep in the car, head in Aunt Diane’s lap. She keeps asking him not to, keeps staying ‘Stay with me, Tony.’ But he’s really really tired so he thinks she’ll forgive him. 

Every time he opens his eyes he’s in a different place, with different people and he wants Tobias back. He wants Dad and Gramps. He wants Jeanne. Jeanne was with him, wasn’t she? And suddenly Tony thinks maybe Jeanne’s hurt too. He tries to get up, he has to find her. Suddenly there are hands all around him, pushing him back down and he doesn’t like that so he cries. He goes back to sleep. When he wakes up the next time he’s covered in warm patches. There’s a warm weight pressing into his left side and both his hands are engulfed in warmth too. There’s something actively hot on his ankle. He knows that he hurts all over but he feels like he’s floating just above it. His right hand is sweaty and he wriggles it trying to work out why.

“Tony?” A scared voice whispers. 

It feels like someone has tied weights to his eyelashes when he tries to open his eyes and at first he sees small slits of light and nothing else but after a moment he can fully open them. He stares at white tiles that definitely don’t belong to his ceiling.

“He’s awake!” And, ow, that was loud.

“Careful, Abs.” Abby’s here?

He swivels his eyes away from the ceiling and finds five pairs eyes looking back at him owlishly. Suddenly the hot spots make sense. Abby is lying on his bed, hugged into his side. Kate has his left hand and Tim, leaning against Gramps’ chair, has his right. Dad is standing at the foot of the bed, his hand on Tony’s ankle and a pinched expression on his face. 

“Hey,” he smiles a big dopey smile and it tugs something on his face. 

“Hey, kid.” Dad says, he’s smiling but it’s still pinched.

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Kate asks softly, stroking her thumb on his hand. Tony’s brain is just operational enough to catch the worried look she sends Dad.

“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’ and he’s starting to realise that the floaty feeling he has is probably from some very strong drugs. 

“Why don’t we go and tell a nurse that he's awake, hm?” Gramps says, easing Tim back to standing. They all reluctantly agree and start leaving. 

Before he lets go of Tony’s hand Tim leans forward and whispers, “I told them you’d be fine.”

The nurses and doctor say a lot of things and Tony does his best to keep up with them. He feels drained when they finally leave the room, as if his skin is the only part of him that's real and his skeleton and organs have somehow evaporated. There’s a dull ache of pain all over. Dad stays hovering in the corner the whole time, leaning against the wall, shirt crumpled around his shoulders and Tony thinks he’s aged a lot since he last saw him, but then he’s not entirely certain when the last time he saw him was. He desperately wants to slip back under because everything seems much simpler when he’s asleep, but Dad is looking at him and so Tony stays awake. When it's just them, Dad takes a seat next to him. He reaches his hand to run it through Tony's hair then thinks better of it, resting it on his chest instead. Tony pretends not to know that Dad is scared. 

“What happened, Dad?”

Dad runs his thumb across Tony’s hospital gown covered chest and looks at a point just above Tony’s right eyebrow. 

“They found your car yesterday. It was totalled, your phone and wallet were in it but you weren’t.”

“I crashed my car?”

“Looks like it, kid.”

Tony tries to think about it. To remember it. He thinks that he remembers a dark road and hands that won’t stop shaking and a breath that wouldn’t go in right, but it slips out his head leaving a dull ache in its place. He blinks sluggishly at the ceiling, the lines between the tiles blurring away a little more each time his eyes close. 

“Sorry for scarin’ ya.”

“Go to sleep, Tony.”

Tony thinks that sounds like a great idea. A really great idea, because he’s so tired and Dad’s hand is so comforting that Tony kind of forgets he’s sixteen and not twelve and dying. He panics. He doesn’t want Dad to go again. He must squirm or something because there’s a voice in his ear that’s telling him no one's going anywhere. 

...

He has a dream. He doesn’t remember what it is but it leaves him feeling hollow and numb in a way he hasn’t felt since Mom died and he wakes up knowing he's lost something big but he can’t remember what. Only Abby’s in the room. She’s sitting at the foot of his bed and the second she sees his eyes open she crawls up, somehow avoiding all the wires and bandages and Tony doesn’t want to think about them. She wraps her arms around his neck and it’s uncomfortable and it hurts but he turns his head into her hair. 

“I thought you were dead.”

“I’m okay, Abs. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“You’re really okay?” And she sounds so much younger than thirteen.

He kisses her forehead instead of saying anything because he can’t dislodge the sadness he woke up with in his chest. Abby reaches down over the side of the bed and produces her stuffed hippo and wedges it between them. They lie there, next to each other and he loves her so much that it dulls the edge of whatever has shifted inside him, even if he doesn't know what caused this particular wound. He pictures himself, and with all the holes life has poked in him he's starting to look like a sieve. He’s fuzzy around the edges and about to tip into sleep when he says it. 

“You ever wonder what I did to piss God off so much?” He has just enough time to think he hadn’t meant to say that out loud because he knows Abby will cry and he’d rather cut off both his legs before he makes his sister cry one more time, then he’s asleep again. 

…

This time when he wakes up he remembers, not the crash itself or getting out of the shell of his car, wrapped around a lamp post, with a concussion and cracked ribs and a sprained knee and walking for nearly ten hours. But he knows what happened. He knows what the feeling of loss means. The hippo is still in his bed but Abby is gone. He’s stiff, on the verge of actual pain, the drugs are definitely wearing off. The room is dark, lit only by the light from the hallway and the street outside the window. Ducky is asleep in the chair next to his bed and he can hear the low murmurs of voices in the dark somewhere. He doesn’t try to find them because he knows that moving his head is not going to be fun, instead he just speaks to Ducky’s sleeping form.

“I had a Thing.” He still can’t admit that they’re panic attacks. 

“What?” And two sets of feet are heading for the bed until Ducky is flanked by Dad and Tobias. The older man doesn't even stir.

“I had a Thing when I was driving home.”

“You remember?” Dad asks.

“I remember it starting and then it’s kind of patchy until I turned up at yours.”

“Anything in particular set you off?” Tobias asks, and he uses the soft voice that he reserves for Emily. 

Tony licks his lips and closes his eyes, he can’t cry now, because too much is at stake. He tells them no and hopes that the dark of the room hides the sheen of his eyes. The second the word leaves his lips he can see the cavernous gap between him and Dad growing. Like they’re standing on opposite sides of a crack in the ground and it keeps getting deeper and bigger. He wonders if Dad can feel it too. If being a father gives you some innate warning system for when you kid is shutting you out. But the room is dark and he can’t read Dad’s face and he’s already falling asleep again. Besides, he can’t tell them the truth, not until he knows for sure that it actually is the truth.


	8. All falls down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains under age drinking and swearing.

He asks for her several times during the night and she’s there when he wakes up in the morning. He doesn’t know what time it actually is but the room is white with light, the blinds still not drawn. She’s sitting next to his bed, lit from behind creating a halo around her, like when Tony used to imagine Mom as an angel. She smiles softly when she sees him looking and he can see in the redness of her eyes that she’s been crying.

“It’s good to see you awake,” she says and raises the hand she has clasped in both of hers and kisses it. 

Tony pulls it away before she’s quite finished the action and she sits up straighter.

“Tony?” He looks away for a moment, trying to stamp down the emotion in his chest and actually do this. She continues, “Are you in pain? Do you want me to get the nurse?”

He shakes his head and it sends white fizzles of pain around his body and yeah, he could probably do with some more painkillers or maybe a brain transplant but he needs to do this now, so no nurses. He looks back at her.

“I met Jeanne’s father. He wasn’t very happy ‘cos I didn’t know who he is but he knew exactly who I am, who my dad is,” he licks at the split in his lip and it hurts but it kind of helps him focus, “who my god-mother was.”

She flinches and he can’t tell if it’s because she’s been caught or because of his deliberate use of the word ‘was’. He doesn’t think it’s a good sign either way. An admission of guilt. She stands stiffly and goes to the window. Her slender fingers shaking slightly as she supports herself on the sill. She doesn’t even look out at the city, she looks down. Avoidance. An admission of guilt. 

“Tell me it’s a coincidence.” It comes out like a question, his urgency for this to be a misunderstanding on his part belies his attempt at cool, and collected. 

Her face is blank, the face of a special agent who knows how interrogations work and isn’t about to be duped by a sixteen year old. Except her emotion is obvious and they both already know what has happened here. He as good as asked and she as good as admitted it. 

“Tony-” she says condescendingly and Tony forgets all about cool and collected because she’s doesn’t get to do that, she’s the bad guy here. 

“No! Tell me it was a coincidence. Tell me that you didn’t know they would be at the restaurant that night. Tell me that you didn’t use the things I told you about her for some personal vendetta. Tell me you didn’t give me your car so I could see her more...” He can hear the desperation in his voice, even if his increasing volume has made his ears start ringing. 

“I didn’t give you my car so you could see her more,” she says it firmly, like it matters. Like the fact that she loved him enough to give him her car makes up for any of this.

“And the rest of it?”

She comes back towards his bed and whatever she says it’s going to be an admission of guilt because he can see it in her eyes. He had already known. He had already known that this conversation was a futile attempt to try and repair his sanity and that there was never any real doubt about how it was going to end.

“Tony,” she says but all Tony hears is ‘yes’. 

“Get out.” 

“Tony, let me explain-”

“Get out.” He grounds the words out through his teeth and turns on his side. 

“I’m d-”

“Get out, or I’ll shout and people will start asking what this conversation was about.”

She stares at him, her eyes impossibly large and it makes him squirm in his skin because this is Aunt Jenny and he has this power over her and it feels wrong in every cell of his body. She opens her mouth but seems to realise that if she doesn’t leave now she’s going to lose this. Whatever this not-quite-forgiveness that he’s offering is. If the situation were at all different Tony expects she would be lecturing him about throwing his own feelings under the bus for the sake of his family. But she doesn’t really have a leg to stand on. It makes him want to throw up because he’s his Dad’s son and he doesn’t like the taste that letting a bad guy off the hook leaves in his mouth, but he’s got no choice. His family has been through enough and he knows that they wouldn’t forgive her for this. Or at least, he kind of hopes they wouldn’t forgive her for this. He’s sure he doesn’t want to test it out either way. 

…

He’s not exactly been sleeping since Jenny left, more like wallowing. Wallowing in the sinking aching hollowness of his chest. Wallowing in the actual, physical pain pretty much all over. He’d turned down another dose of whatever it is they’re giving him, saying he felt fine. He knows it’s weird but he kind of likes the pain right now. It’s a lot easier to feel than the other kind and unfortunately he’s very familiar with feeling the other kind. He knows Kate would scold him and call him a sadist or masochist, he can’t remember which one is right, but he needs it. He needs to not think about Jenny and the ceiling tiles just hadn’t been cutting it as a distraction. So, he’s not asleep but he’s not exactly with it either when he fails notice Jimmy entering the room. 

“Hey, man.” 

And Jimmy’s head bobs into view above Tony’s. Tony jumps. Ouch.

“Woah, easy, you okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m just dandy, Jim.”

Jimmy sighs, brushing off Tony’s snappiness and sits down. “You know, I was really worried.”

“Sorry, Jimmy.”

“You just like straight up disappeared and I kept waiting to hear where they’d find the body-”

“Have a little faith,” Tony tries to smile but Jimmy is in full panic mode and not really looking at him.

“I’m being serious, Tony. You should have seen the state of your car.”

“You saw my car?”

“Yeah! I rode out there to look for you in the morning, just before you turned up and it was a mess, Tony.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m fine. I promise.”

Jimmy nods and puts his hand around Tony’s wrist, Tony smiles at his not so subtle pulse checking. Jimmy chuckles embarrassed when he realises he’s been caught then his face goes serious again. 

“What happened? Jeanne said you were fine when you left hers.”

“You’ve spoken to Jeanne? Is she okay?”

“Yeah she’s fine. She’s worried about you. She wants to swing by after school today, nurse you better!” Jimmy wiggles his eyebrows and Tony laughs even though it's the last thing he feels like doing right now. Jimmy sees straight through it and his face goes serious again, “What happened?”

“I had a Thing.”

“Oh,” is all Jimmy says and pats Tony’s wrist. “Why’d you freak?”

Tony considers telling him, telling him about how Jenny set it all up; about the personal grudge Jeanne’s father had informed him of after dinner when they were alone; about being accused of spying on Jeanne; about leaving Jeanne’s not being able to breathe because Jenny had used him. He wants someone in his corner, even if he thinks that’s a selfish thing to want. But he can’t get the words out. He can’t even begin to form the sentences. So he feeds Jimmy a line. It’s a pretty good one, considering how non-functional his brain is right now.

“I met her parents and it just… I don’t know, like, my dad doesn’t even know her name. I liked it being just us and meeting her mom and dad... it felt like it was bigger than us. Like it wasn’t about us anymore. And then that made me think about my family and… well I don’t have a mom- like what am I gonna do, take her to the graveyard?”

“You’ve told her about your mom though?”

“I mean she knows she’s dead but we haven’t really talked about it.”

“So what, you want to break up?”

“No! I just… my family is messy, Jimmy. Anything my family touches gets fucked up and I can’t do that to Jeanne.”

He hadn’t really meant to say anything as true as that but he can’t stop thinking about that stupid french restaurant. It makes him tear up a bit and then a bit more. He ends up sobbing all over Jimmy’s shirt. Jimmy just holds him in silence for a long while.

“What about me? You let me be a part of your family, so does that mean that they’ve fucked me up or am I part of the problem?” He doesn’t let go of Tony, even though there’s hurt and anger in voice and Tony hates that he put it there. 

“Jimmy, I didn't mean -”

"You know, I should get going or I'll be late for school."

Tony sighs but he's reluctantly thankful because he can feel the weight of lying to Jimmy starting to press in on him. "Okay, Jimmy."

“Right. Bye, Tony. Maybe I’ll come by again tonight after… you know…” he gestures with his hands and Tony guesses that it is supposed to be the shape of a woman’s body. He gets to the door before he turns around and says, “Oh, and I, er, brought you this. From my mom.” He turns back and gives Tony a Mighty Mouse stapler. Jimmy’s mom is a garage sale enthusiast. Jimmy blushes, “Sorry it’s weird. She, uh, well she… it’s a superhero and she thought...”

“It’s great, Jimmy, thanks.” Tony says clicking it in the air like a castanet, “Perfect for when I pull my stitches.”

Jimmy winces instead of laughing, and leaves.

…

Gramps comes and stays with him all day. He rubs circles on Tony’s arm the whole time and reads him some book that Tony thinks is about fishing, from the bits he’s been awake for, but then actually, there was that bit when the characters were all in Vietnam so maybe it’s not about fishing. He can’t turn down the meds when they’re offered to him this time because Gramps would ask too many questions. He feels like a kid again, with Gramps reading to him, a steady, reassuring figure that is somehow both softer and more gruff than Dad. Tony kind of wants him to leave because he keeps crying, he’s too tired not to, and he’d rather do that alone. Gramps doesn’t even question it, he just wipes the tears away and keeps reading. Tony has never been more thankful for the Gibbs men’s inability to deal with emotion. 

....

Jeanne breaks up with him when he tells her the truth. Not cruelly and she makes sure to tell him that it’s not his fault. That she does love him but she, well, it’s just all so complicated and she can’t do it. She and her dad are going to move to France for a bit. She says she’s sorry to do this now, when he’s in the hospital, but they’re leaving in a couple of days. She insists, one more time, that it’s not his fault and kisses him on the cheek. Tony can see in her eyes that she doesn’t mean it, that she doesn’t trust him anymore. When she leaves he feels another wound form in him, not as deep as the others but it still hurts nonetheless. Tony is sick of getting hurt. Sick of hurting those around him. He has quite literally driven his first girlfriend out of the country. He thinks about wishing he’d never met her, but he can’t mean it because he loves her. And he hates himself for not being able to because he’d caused her pain, he’d uprooted her entire life, and he still can’t bring himself to wish he’d never met her. His guilt about the situation triples but he still can’t make himself wish away the last six months. He thinks feeling guilty is not enough.

…

He tells his family about the break up only after he’s been discharged. They find the timing suspicious, especially now they know her name, and her father's. Dad interrogates him but Tony insists that he had no idea who her father was when he had met him and he had just freaked out about how serious they were getting and crashed his car. That it was all a big coincidence, one which had a massive fall out and according to the hushed conversation between Leon and Dad had ruined a CIA operation. Tony thinks that the CIA should probably improve their performance if an entire operation could be foiled by a sixteen-year-old’s bad driving, but he’s no expert. They still have family meals every Friday and Tony and Jenny have revealed to each other just how good at acting they both are. They tip toe around each other and no one seems to notice despite the fact that half of them get paid to notice things everyday. The only one who does notice is Kate, but he brushes off her concern until she gives up, which is a first for both of them. He hates lying to her and he’s found himself outside her bedroom door in the middle of the night, hand raised to knock, more times than he can count. His resolve breaks one evening, he’s not sure why. He’s hit by a wave of something, something akin to grief. He gets halfway down stairs and sees her curled up on the couch with Abby and Jenny. He hadn’t even known she was over. They’re braiding Abby’s hair and watching some chick flick. They’re laughing and Kate has that light in her eye that has only started to come back in the last few years. He freezes where he’s standing because he can’t take this away from her. Jenny seems to sense him and she catches his eye. He turns tail and runs back to his room. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive Jenny.

…

Life carries on. Tony parties a little harder than before, he does it without Jimmy because he knows you’re not supposed to mix recent head injuries with alcohol, he doesn’t need to be told. He throws himself back into basketball, once the docs clear him. And that’s his life, basketball, parties and failing classes he could easily pass. He lets himself float. That’s the only way he can describe it. He floats above his life, reserving his energy for being just enough of an annoying older brother to keep serious concern at bay. He finally understands why Dad was the way he was after the funeral. He feels like the world is operating at a different speed and on a different angle to him, thrown off its axis and it feels less wrong if you’re drunk. One of his teammates in senior year hooks him up with a fake ID and he hides his bottles of Jack and Seagram’s in the box under his bed. The one with the pictures of Mom and Kelly. He knows it’s stupid and he knows it’s kind of dangerous. He knows it doesn’t actually make him feel better but he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. He can’t talk to Jenny, he can barely look at her. Jimmy is sad and mopey and his constant worrying has started to piss Tony off. Kate is fresh out of patience with him pushing her away. Everyone knows something is up but the thing about Tony is, he’s really good at making it seem like he’s functioning when he’s not. The other thing about Tony is, his memory gets a little foggy when he’s loaded up with Jack. Like, fuzzy enough to forget it’s Friday which means family night, which means he should have stayed sober.

Someone knocks on his door and he shoves the bottle under his pillow, spraying some deodorant to cover the smell.

“Yeah?”

Kayla slowly opens the door, only poking her head in, “Um, dinner’s ready. Everyone’s waiting downstairs.”

“Shit!” Tony says, scrambling to get out of bed, she giggles, “Don’t tell your Dad I said that!”

He follows her out, pausing briefly at the door to think about changing out of his sweats but he can’t be bothered, if Dad shouts at him then he can be silent during dinner without raising suspicion. Dad does shout at him, tells him to go change, Tony puts up a pretty good fight but he doesn’t win. He comes back down in jeans to a plate of lukewarm food. He pushes it around, scraping it onto Tim’s plate in small quantities when no one’s looking. 

“Where’s Jimmy, Tones?” Dad asks, and Tony nearly misses it completely. If he was less buzzed he would have realised it was an olive branch. But he is that buzzed.

“Dunno, probably having dinner with his actual family.”

“Did something happen between the two of you? You’re normally attached at the hip.” Ducky asks. 

“No, we’re fine.” Tony says stabbing his chicken with a little more force than necessary. 

“He’s probably just sick of Tony’s moping, like everyone else.” Kate sneers.

Tony can feel the alcohol tingling hotly in his blood as he slams his cutlery down, “You know what, Kate, why don’t you just mind your damn business?”

“Why don’t you stop pushing people away?” She counters.

“Okay, enough!” Gramps booms from the head of the table, but Tony’s blood is pumping and he hasn’t had this much adrenaline in a while so he ploughs on through. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Katie, do you want to braid each other’s hair while I tell you all my deepest darkest secrets-”

“God, you are such an ass-”

“Then maybe we can paint each others toe-”

“No, seriously, Anthony, why are you such an ass?”

“I don’t know, Caitlin, why are you such a self-righteous bitch?”

Over various scoldings from the adults Kate shouts, “What is wrong with you?”

Tony’s about to respond when Tim says, “Abby and I think he has PTSD.”

Tim’s inability to read the damn room has all the adults scrambling to gain control back over the table, “Okay, that’s enough, why don’t we all go watch some TV? Tim, Abby, TV now.” Jackie says, but it’s futile, because Tim is incapable of stopping once he’s started digging a hole.

“No, we looked it up! He has loa-”

“I do not have PTSD!” Tony bellows, and yeah, okay, that probably wasn’t the best way to prove that he is, in fact, stable. 

“He’s irritable and he-” Abby tugs Tim’s sleeve, shaking her head at the same time Tony head slaps him, hard, and he finally shuts up. Tony fills the resulting silence by scooting his hair back.

“Tony, my dear boy,” Ducky tries to stop him but Tony is already standing. He sways a little and realises that maybe he’s had a bit more to drink than he thought he had. Leon catches his elbow and Ducky is also on his feet, “Are you alright?”

“He’s drunk.” Leon says, the contempt in his voice clear for all to hear.

“I’m not drunk.” He tries to yank his arm away but Leon’s grip is tight enough to bruise. 

“What is going on with you?” Dad shouts.

“Nothing! Nothing is going on with me! I’m not the problem,” He thumps his chest, he feels as though he has no control over his body anymore, “You are. You’re all the problem. I hate this fucking family!” 

He’s literally shaking with rage. Emily is crying and huddled in Diane’s arms. He’s scaring her. He’s hurting them all. Again. The whole point of this is that he’s supposed to be saving them. He is the problem. He’s always the damn problem and suddenly he’s not angry anymore. Leon lets go of him as soon as he realises Tony is crying. He takes advantage of his new found freedom and storms out. He runs straight to his room, slamming the door loud enough for them to hear over the chaos he’s left downstairs. He tucks the bottle from under his pillow into his waistband and climbs out the window. He slides it shut after him, he doesn’t plan on coming back tonight anyway. He’s halfway to his bike when the front door opens and she shouts his name. He freezes, because, honestly, he had expected her to stay out of it. He could still make it to his bike but he knows her and she’d just get in her car and follow him. She closes the front door behind her. He doesn’t move. 

“Tony,” her voice is commanding and comforting at the same time and he turns and it hurts to look at her. “This has gone on long enough.”

“Go away, Jenny.”

“I’m not going to let you destroy yourself-”

“You already did that! You did this to me.” 

He can’t tell if he’s shouting or crying at this point, all he knows is that there’s something horrible in his chest. A swirling ball of feeling that he can’t understand or control and it’s spilling out of him left, right and center. 

“I’m going to tell them, Tony, because this needs to stop.”

And suddenly he’s ice cold. “No.”

“Tony-”

“No. Listen to me, you are not telling them anything.”

“Tony, they need to know, you need to deal with this as a family-”

“They will never forgive you.”

“That’s not important. You need help.”

“Yes it is.”

“No-”

“You’ll destroy this family. You’ll destroy Abby and Kate and Tim. And my Dad. Because they’ll shut you out even if they don’t want to. They’ll do it for my sake and I’ll be responsible for them losing you and I can’t do that. You can’t do that.”

“Tony,” she says, her voice carefully void of emotion.

“I’ll do anything. I’ll go to therapy, whatever, just don’t tell them.”

She bows her head and nods.

“Okay, but come back inside.”

“Swear.”

“I swear on my life-”

“Swear on mine.” He doesn’t know what it was about her voice that made him say it but something was off. He hates how well he knows her. 

She takes a shuddering breath, “I swear on your life, I won’t say anything.”

He follows her inside. 


	9. One step forward, two steps back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! There is an implied suicide in this chapter so please read carefully

Therapy isn’t so bad in the end. He figures out pretty quickly how to play the guy, but for the most part he doesn’t. It’s not how he expected it to be. Dr. Banks doesn’t just sit and listen and write and say ‘and how does that make you feel?’ He calls Tony out on his bullshit, challenges him to explain his feelings. Tony kind of hates it and he’s emotionally drained and snappy for a while afterwards and he usually shuts himself in his room for the rest of the day. He doesn’t tell Dr. Banks what Jenny did because he thinks it probably counts as child endangerment and he’d tell Dad or Mr. Morrow or someone. That and he still can’t bring himself to say it out loud. He tries in the mirror a couple times but his larynx becomes instantly paralysed. He figures it’s self-preservation of some kind. He lies about the drinking too, because he’s stopped, other than the occasional party, with Jimmy in tow. He figures it’s not a problem. He mostly talks about Mom and Kelly and Jeanne. He’s forced to unpack a lot of feelings and he feels like one of Ducky’s corpses, sliced open and stripped down to their bare components. Tony, it turns out, is mostly composed of guilt. Banks tries to get him to talk about people that are still around but Tony deflects. It feels like a betrayal to talk about people while they’re still around. This ends when he has a fight with Kate, who still hasn’t fully forgiven him and he walks into Banks’ office ready to explode. He feels numb after that session. He sits at dinner and watches the door because some part of him expects someone to barge in and take him away for snitching. He doesn’t touch his dinner even when Dad growls him, he just asks to be excused from the table and spends the rest of the evening in bed. 

Banks talks a lot about Tony needing to make amends, alleviate his guilt. He goes to Jimmy first. He stands on his doorstep, feeling like he’s in an eighties Rom Com, and tries his hardest to be honest even though it’s become second nature not to be. 

“I’m sorry, Jimmy. For treating you like shit and pushing you away. You’ve only ever looked out for me and I haven’t been much good at doing the same for you recently. You deserve much better and I’m sorry. I’ve been a dick but I’m trying to do better, ya know?” Jimmy ducks his head and Tony goes on, “What I said about my family fucking people up, well, you gotta admit, that I was kinda right. I mean, you’re just about the only uncomplicated thing in my life and I still manage to screw it up. And the thing is, that I love you, man. You’re my brother, fucked up or not.” 

Jimmy pulls him into a hug before he’s even finished talking. Tony has missed him so much. He fists his hand into Jimmy’s shirt and the both rest their heads on the other’s shoulder. Tony wishes that they’d done this inside so the whole neighborhood wouldn’t see them blubbering like girls. They pull apart, wiping their eyes and head to Jimmy’s room. 

“I’ve been so worried about you, dude.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been a bit of a mess. I had a massive fight with my famil-”

“Yeah, Kate told me.”

“You’ve been spying on me through Kate?”

“I’ve been worried.”

If it weren’t for recent events Tony would find it touching but it hits a particularly sore spot. In a way that makes Tony absently rub his chest. He swallows his anger and nods instead.

“Guessing she’s told you I’ve been going to therapy, then?”

“No, actually she hadn’t.” There’s an awkward pause and Tony realises that he might have done more damage than he originally thought he had. Jimmy squeezes his shoulder and says, “I’m proud of you, Tones.” 

It’s enough to ease Tony’s worry and they end up watching  _ Karate Kid _ for, like, the billionth time. On his way out he finds Jimmy’s mom and thanks her for the stapler. She says she’s glad he’s feeling better and that he and Jimmy have worked things out.

“You’re welcome any time, honey.” She says pressing a tin of snickerdoodles into his hands.

…

He broaches Kate next. He knocks on the door as he opens it because he knows she’d just slam it in his face and deny him entry otherwise. She throws a textbook at him and he ducks just in time. It leaves a dent in the door frame where his head had been. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to kill me.” He says inspecting the dent. 

“I’m not trying to kill you, Tony.” Kate scowls and goes back to her homework.

“Yeah? Tell that to Psychology 101,” he says picking up the book.

He puts it down next to her and places the bag of M&Ms he brought to bribe her with on top. He sees the tension leave her shoulders and it makes him think everything’s going to be fine. He sits on her bed and she turns towards him, their knees knocking together.

“That’s not fair.” She says opening the bag.

“I know,” he smiles cheekily and sees the corners of her mouth turn up involuntarily. “You know what else isn’t fair?”

“What?”

“The way I’ve been treating you.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“I was dealing with a lot of stuff-”

“I was trying to help!”

“I know that, Katie. I didn’t want to drag you down with me. I was trying to protect you and it backfired.”

“Yeah, because you’re an idiot,” she says, but she offers him the bag and he knows he’s been forgiven. 

“Yeah, I am. ‘Cos I’ve got the best fucking family in the world and I let my anger blind me against that,” he swallows around the lump in his throat, because there was a time when he would have said that and meant it completely. “I’d be lost with you, dude.”

Kate’s crying and he kind of wants to too but he’s a bit sick of crying at this point so he doesn’t. 

“Come ‘ere,” he opens his arms and she practically falls from her chair into them. The momentum knocks them over on her bed. 

They stay like that for a long time, Kate not quite sobbing into his chest and Tony running his hands through her hair. Once she has created some pretty solid wet patches on his shirt she lifts her head and wriggles up to tuck it into his neck. 

“I’m sorry too.” 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“No, I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. You’re just so good at pushing people's buttons, sometimes I swear you do it on purpose.”

“Nope, that’s one hundred percent natural talent.”

She snorts and sprays his neck with warm snot, he shrieks and rolls away desperately wiping it in her hair.

“Egh! Tony!”

“They’re your bogies!”

She pulls him back into the hug only to clean her nose on his t-shirt. He groans but it turns into a laugh and he settles back into the hug. Abby sticks her head around the door and Tony and Kate pop theirs up from the bed like meerkats.

“Have you guys made up?”

“Yes,” Kate says and Abby squeals with delight, throwing herself onto the pile.

After quite a lot of squirming and with only minimal bodily harm Abby finds a comfortable position between the two of them and Tony wraps his arms around his girls. They cuddle and the girls torment him for being a dick. Abby does a terrible impression of him being drunk at dinner and Kate nearly wets herself laughing but Tony doesn’t find it as funny.

“You know, Abs, I didn’t mean it. I could never hate you.” 

“I know, you were just hurting.” She looks at him with her big earnest eyes and he kisses her cheek. “And drunk.” She adds and suddenly she and Kate are giggling again. 

Abby starts telling them about her science project only to stop mid sentence and say, “Are those M&M’s?” She lurches for them and Tony and Kate tackle her at the same time, both shouting ‘No’. There’ll be hell to pay if they unleash a hyper Abby into the Gibbs house on a weeknight. 

…

Tim’s a little less forgiving. He’s been avoiding Tony like the plague since that god-awful family dinner. He’s playing his magic game on the PC in the living room and Tony doesn’t want to make him log off but it’s the first time he’s managed to corner Tim in a room alone. Tony asks Tim to log off extra nicely and to his surprise he does it straight away.

“You know, you weren’t far off.”

“What?”

“Well, Dr. Banks thinks I’m depressed, so you weren’t far off with PTSD.”

“Oh,” he fiddles with his headphones in his lap. “You’re okay though, right?”

“Yeah, Timmy, I’m fine.” Tim nods and Tony comes and kneels in front of him, “I know I reacted badly, and I’m sorry, but it means a lot that you and Abby were trying to help me.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. I hate that I put you guys in that position but I’m very lucky to have a brother who’s looking out for me.”

“So, you don’t hate me?”

“No, Tim, I could never hate you. Know why?”

“‘Cos you’re my brother and you’re always gonna be there?” Says and Tony swears he hears a hint of a tease in there.

“‘Cos I’m your brother and I’m always gonna be here.” Tony affirms, ruffling his hair. 

“You weren’t there, when you disappeared.” Tim goes back to playing with the headset, “Dad flipped out. He was shouting and swearing at the cops. He’s much more scary than you when he shouts.”

“I can imagine.”

“Promise you won’t do that again?”

“I’ll try my best.”

Tim nods and Tony squeezes the back of his neck, “So, can I go back to my game now?”

“Sure thing, Elflord. Love ya.” Tony says standing up.

“Love you too.” Tim replies, already putting his headphones back on and turning to the computer.

…

Tony decides to kill all the rest of his birds with one stone. He’s avoided family night since that night, eating at Jimmy’s or just hiding in his room. There’s a lot of people to face and it’s been just a bit more than he could handle. But he’s determined to get it over with. He stays in his room, pacing up and down until Abby comes upstairs and tells him that everyone’s here now. She holds his hand while they walk down stairs and they both pretend that it’s for her sake. The room goes silent when they enter. Tony sees Jared edge behind Leon’s legs and his heart breaks a little. He’s not sure he can do this and every fibre of his body is telling him to run, get out of here, but Abby is holding his hand and he can’t go anywhere. He stumbles through an apology, not as eloquent as his others but just as earnest. He makes an effort to make eye contact with every single one of them, except Jenny. They’re all irritatingly forgiving and it makes Tony uncomfortable. He’s sure that Dr. Banks would have a field day with that, but Tony pretends to ignore it and just does his best to get through the evening. Emily insists that he sits next to her and Tony can’t resist her because she reminds him so much of Abby when she was younger. Abby sits on his otherside and holds his hand under the table for most of the evening, launching into long Ducky-esque stories whenever she sees Tony flagging in a conversation. He ends up in her bedroom at the end of the evening, fighting off tears. She strokes his hair until he falls asleep.

… 

He stays away for a long while. He’s still so angry that he can barely stand being in the same room as her once a week. But then Dr. Banks keeps talking to him about getting closure and he realises that he needs to know. They meet at the pizzeria, the one she should have taken him to after the game. She’s already sitting in the booth by the window, a slice of banoffee pie waiting for him across from her. He slides in and pushes the plate away.

“Why’d you do it?”

“He killed my father.”

“No, I mean why’d you use me?”

She takes a long sip of her coffee and looks out the window.

“You were raring to give me excuses last time.”

She sighs and rubs her forehead, “You’ve been doing so much better recently, I don’t want to ruin that.”

“You won’t. I need to know.”

She stares intently into her coffee and makes a face, one that puts Tony on edge but he doesn’t know why. 

“I’m dying, Tony.”

“What?” And how dare it hurt as much as it does to hear her say that. 

“Brain cancer.”

And all of Jenny’s weird behaviour, even from a while back, clicks into place.

“But you can get, like, chemo or surgery, right? People get better from cancer all the time.”

“There’s nothing they can do.” Her lips turn up in a smile but it’s so sad it makes Tony’s insides squirm.

“Does Dad know?”

“No.”

“Should you still be working?”

She smirks, “Probably not. I think we can both agree that my judgement is a little clouded.” 

She’s dying. She’s actually dying. He takes a bite of the pie to give his stomach something to do other than feel sick.

“What are you gonna do?”

“Keep going until I get caught.”

“You know, I’ve tried that one, doesn’t always work.”

“Tony, I’ve worked in secret service circles for a while and I’m starting to think that I’ve never met anyone as good as you. My guess is, it works for you more times than it doesn’t.”

He doesn’t reply, just stuffs a particularly large forkful of pie in his mouth.

“I’ve put you in a pretty terrible spot and that was never my intention. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope that as someone who seems determined to fall on his own sword for his family you can understand.”

“You didn’t fall on your sword, Jenny, you pushed me onto it.”

She sighs and steals some of the pie with the spoon from her coffee. 

“I’m not asking you to keep this a secret, Tony.”

“We’ve got plenty of secrets, what’s one more?”

“You’re sure?”

“It’s your cancer. Plus, I don’t know if knowing and waiting just makes it harder.”

“You know I love you. I need you to believe that.”

He nods his head and he’s suddenly crying. She reaches her hand over the table and holds his and it makes his skin crawl. He’s stuck by the realisation that he’s not ready to forgive her. That he might not be ready before it’s too late. He finishes the pie, wipes his tears on his sleeve and lies about having basketball practice. He paces the alleyway next to the diner twice before he goes back in.

“I love you too.”

He practically runs out. 

  
  


…

He’s not sleeping. In fact he’s thinking about sneaking out for a ride on his bike but he sees Dad pull up in the driveway. It's well after midnight. He watches Dad sag against the side of the car and slide to the ground and somehow, Tony knows. He waits to see if Dad will get up but after ten minutes he still hasn’t. Tony throws on a sweatshirt. He slides down next to Dad, mirroring him, hands on pulled up knees. Dad doesn’t acknowledge him. He slides his legs down flat and without turning to Tony says,

“Jen’s dead.”

Tony’s mouth is completely dry, he wants to swallow but he can’t. Instead, he presses his shoulder into Dad’s.

“There was a shootout.” He’s picking at one of the calluses on his palm. “She fought like hell.”

Tony thinks, sure she did. Fought like hell then got herself killed so she wouldn’t have to die of brain cancer. 

“I should have had her six.” Dad says it so quietly that Tony almost doesn’t hear it. 

He considers telling him, but he doesn’t know what good it will do. Dad will feel angry and betrayed, Tony knows this for a fact. He’s sure that it will come out with the autopsy so there’s no use in widening the canyon between them now. He feels a little bit of anger bubble in his gut. It’s the first thing that he’s felt since he saw Dad pull up. He wants it to be sadness, to be grief, but he’d lost Jenny a while ago, he’s got a head start on the others. He’s angry that she couldn’t have found a way to do it that left Dad out. He doesn’t deserve to think this is his fault. 

“I think you did, Dad.” He jerks, clearly thinking Tony hadn’t heard him. 

Tony stands, his ass cold from the concrete, and offers Dad his hand. Dad stands like he has no bones, half leaning on the car. 

“You wanna tell them now or in the morning?”

Dad’s eyes glisten in the moonlight but he doesn’t let the tears fall. 

“Morning,” he says, his voice rough. 

Tony nods. He hooks an arm under Dad’s shoulder and takes some of his weight. He’s surprised to find he’s nearly Dad’s height. They haven’t stood this close to each other in what feels like eons. In reality the last time was when Dad helped Tony into the house after the car crash a half year or so ago. Their current position feels like a mockery of the memory and makes Tony's skin feel too tight on his bones. He’d been in so much pain from losing Jenny but he refused to do anything about it in order to prevent this, this exact situation because now they’ve lost her anyway. He helps Dad up the stairs and into his room. Pushes him to shower off the grime of the day. Wash away the lingering of Jenny’s perfume. While he waits Tony thinks about how it’s going to be the last time he ever smells that on Dad. He has a vague memory of Mom having a perfume but he can’t place the smell. Something much sweeter than Jenny’s. When Dad is in bed Tony sits vigil. He knows Dad isn’t really sleeping and he doesn’t blame him. They lie next to each other the whole night. Dad under the covers, pretending, Tony on top and not bothering to even close his eyes. He tracks the light change against the far wall as the sun comes up. His last thought before Dad’s alarm goes off is that he still hasn’t forgiven her.


	10. Tomorrow, and the year after

The cancer diagnosis does come out with the autopsy. It takes Dad three days after he finds out to tell them. He knows this because Ducky’s the one that actually tells them and Tony hears them discussing it in the hall. 

“It’s been three days. They deserve to know, Jethro.”

“I know, Duck.”

“I could tell them.”

“Thanks, Duck.”

There’s a long silence.

“I’m so angry at her.”

“Me too, my friend, me too.”

...

Jenny’s sister organises the funeral and Tony’s thankful because she asks him if he wants to speak and he says no and she doesn’t ask any questions. Neither does anybody else. Assumptions, Tony’s new best friend. She comes by the Gibbs house almost a week afterwards. Tim answers the door. 

“Daaaad!” He calls out. 

Tony is leaving the kitchen, juggling a hot PopTart between his hands, he jumps at Tim’s shout and nearly drops it. 

“Tim, dude, don’t be rude. Invite Heather in.”

“Right, sorry, come in,” He gestures her towards the living room, closing the door behind her. “Daaad!” He shouts once more and Tony cringes. 

“How you doing, Heather?”

“I’m alright.” She smiles tightly and she looks so like Jenny it raises a pang of something in Tony’s heart that he has mostly been able to avoid. 

“Right.” They sit awkwardly on opposite ends of the couch.

Dad appears from the basement, wiping his hands on a cloth. “What is it Tim?”

Tim just gestures at Heather, perched uncomfortably on the edge of her seat, handbag still over her shoulder and a brown envelope clutched between her manicured hands. 

“Heather. Sorry, I didn’t see you there. What can I do for you?”

“Jenny left some money for the kids in her will.”

“She what?” Dad looks genuinely gobsmacked. 

Heather stands, opening the envelope, she fishes out a stack of paper and holds it out to Dad. Tony can’t help but notice how slender her hands are, her movements elegant, like Jenny, even when she's so ill at ease.

“A savings account for each of them.”

Dad takes the papers and Tony couldn’t help but zone in on the slight tremor in his hands.

She reaches back into the envelope, “And, um, she had a lot of photos. I thought you’d probably want them.” 

Dad nods and takes them from her, barely looking away from the bank statements.  She stands there, prim and proper and clutching the envelope in silence for a few minutes. Tim is doing what looks like some awkward gymnastics routine on the arm of one of the chairs and Dad has moved his attention from the papers to the photo on top of the pile. 

“I’m selling the house,” she blurts out, looking almost surprised at her own words, “Just so you know.”

Dad nods. She looks over at whatever Tim is doing, and the face she makes tells Tony that she is not a kid person. 

“Right. I’ll be on my way then. Tony, show me to the door?” She’s so similar to Jenny it’s weird. 

She ends up going first, Tony trailing behind her, thankful that Dad is too distracted by the papers to realise how strange this whole interaction is. She motions for him to close the front door behind them. She pulls out a smaller envelope from the brown one and hands it to him. His fingers tingle ominously when he takes it. The paper feels expensive in his sweaty hands and his name in Jenny’s swirling neat handwriting stares up at him. 

“This was in her safe, I've no idea why. I figured it was personal.” He turns it over and notices that the flap is tucked in, not sealed, he thumbs it. “I haven’t read it, don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

She slips the now empty envelope into her purse and pulls out some sunglasses and her car keys. 

“Oh, and she also left you her Mustang. I’ll have it delivered with the deeds.”

Her heels are clicking down the driveway before he can respond. 

Dad has gone back to the basement and Tim is now settled in the chair playing on his gameboy. Tony goes into the backyard to read the letter. It’s half explanation, half apology. She asks him to look after Dad. She signs it off,

_ Love, Jenny _

_ P.S. Try not to crash this time. _

He slips it back into the envelope only to notice something else in there. It’s a photograph. Tony must be all of three years old. He is perched in Jenny’s lap at the dining table, there’s a glass of milk in the front of the picture and what must be Kelly’s hand in the edge of the frame. Tony is colouring with his right hand, his left wrapped around Jenny’s hand on the table. Neither of them are looking at the camera, both too interested in the drawing and the crayons scattered around it. He stares at the photo until his hands shake. He goes to return it to the envelope too when he sees the blue ink on the back.

_ Anthony and Jennifer, 1992 _

He thinks it’s probably Mom’s writing but he doesn’t know it as well he knows Jenny’s. It’s definitely not Dad’s. He puts it away and hides the envelope in the box under his bed.

...

He has a headache from Abby blasting her music at full volume all day. He knows she does it when she’s trying to cover up her crying. Today she had refused to let Tony comfort her. He’d felt helpless and had floated around the house because of it. Tim had been extra grouchy because of the noise, shouldering Tony and flouncing off whenever he tried to talk to him. Abby had finally turned the music off and gone to bed. He’d tried to read the book on sign language he’d gotten from the library but it made his eyes throb. Abby had decided she needed to learn it and Tony thought he probably should too. He never knows how Abby’s morbid fascinations will end and on the off chance she decides that sign language is the only way she’s prepared to communicate, Tony wants to be prepared. He’s been thinking about Jenny’s will a lot. His room feels small and too full of things, he goes to find Dad. He finds him in the basement with Gramps. Neither of them are working on the boat, just sitting an intimate distance apart from each other, drinking scotch, at a guess. Tony slinks down the stairs, stopping a couple from the bottom, where they turn. He slides down the wall and only Gramps turns to look at him as he sits. He sticks his legs out straight and they awkwardly dangle over the remaining steps. Dad carries on drinking. Hypocrite, Tony thinks. He lets his head thunk back against the wall, using the momentum and the shape of his skull to lull it side to side. He stares at the wooden beams of the ceiling and speaks. 

“Would it have been better if you had known?”

Tony thinks he can already answer this question, and despite his other extenuating circumstances, he knows the answer is no, because she’s dead and that’s the part that hurts. No matter how used to death you are you can’t ever fully prepare yourself.

Dad just shakes his head, not in a way that means the answer is a definite no, it's more uncertain than that. It's enough to confirm Tony's suspicions though.  It's not enough to ease the guilt in Tony’s stomach but it’s better than nothing. Like instead of Arnica over a bruise it’s a bandaid over a bullet hole. He thinks the analogy is perhaps inappropriate given the circumstance, but he’s been thinking about bullet holes a lot. Tony swings his head again, and it makes him feel both grounded and a bit drunk. He smiles up at the ceiling. The Gibbs men, getting drunk together. He’s glad the stairs are shrouded in darkness because he really shouldn’t be smiling considering what they're talking about. He lets the silence consume him for a bit. They settle, like dust particles, into the musty basement. 

“You need to change your will.”

Dad hums in question over his glass.

“You never changed it. Jenny’s still our legal guardian if anything happens to you,” he doesn’t take his eyes away from the beams in the ceiling. “You need to change it. Maybe don’t choose a field officer this time.”

“Right.” 

He hears the bottle being uncapped and swings his head against the wall once more, the soft thuds of the motion doing little to cover the sound of a drink being poured. He ends up falling asleep there, the silence and remnants of his headache pulling him into the best sleep he’s had for a while. A long while. He wakes to Gramps shaking his shoulder, gently prodding him up the stairs in his half-asleep state. 

…

Kate turns to religion, Tony doesn’t get it. He tells her as much when he sees that she’s started wearing Mom’s crucifix. 

“We aren’t even catholic, Kate.” He tells her when she asks him to go to a service.

“Well it’s all the same God, Tony, and I like St. Clementine’s.”

“I don’t know how healthy this sudden fanaticism is.”

“It helps to believe that they’re all up there together.”

Tony has doubts about Jenny making it into heaven but he keeps them to himself. 

“But do you really want to believe in a God that lets so much bad happen. That takes so many people from you?”

“Tony, I need to. I need to believe that there’s a reason behind all this otherwise…” She trails off into frustrated tears and Tony pulls her into his chest, whispering sorry in her ear. 

He drops it after that. He even goes to a couple of services with her. 

It’s not for him. He gets it, kinda, but he thinks if God _is_ real then Tony must have done something unforgivable. Certainly nothing a couple of Hail Mary’s would fix, so he doesn’t see the point. Kate doesn’t resent him when he stops going with her. 

Abby’s goth-ness increases. Tony and Kate take her to the mall to get her ears pierced for her birthday. Tony’s expecting Dad to be livid, not with Abby of course, but he’s not. This worries Tony because Dad has never passed up on an opportunity to give Tony a hard time before. Tony lets it slide, purely because Dad has decided to throw himself into work rather than the bottle after all. The others could probably do with having him around, but Tony’s okay with it.

Family dinners stop after the funeral. Dad’s team has a new agent, Cassie Yates, but it makes things complicated because it’s rude to invite the rest of the team over and not her, but at the same time she isn’t family. So they stop all together.

…

Gramps tells Dr. Banks. Tells him how Jenny had kept her illness from them and died suddenly and how he doesn’t know whether to be concerned or relieved that Tony is coping with it so well. Dr. Banks tells Tony that it’s alright to feel angry, to feel betrayed and Tony starts talking about how badly she hurt him. He doesn’t tell him what actually happened, keeping up the pretence that her greatest betrayal was he cancer. He knows he slips up sometimes, that Dr. Banks gets sceptical about how strong the feelings of betrayal are, how deep Tony's anger runs, but he never comments on it. 

He thinks he’ll take this secret to the grave because his family was hurt enough by the cancer revelation and he refuses to sully her memory further.

He doesn’t take it to the grave.

He’s high. He’d managed to get the good stuff and he’s lying in the bark of the playground staring up at the stars through the monkey bars. 

“I’m worried about you.”

“You’re always worried about me.”

“You’re so busy looking after everyone, I’m worried you’re not grieving yourself.”

“I don’t need to grieve her, Jimmy. She was already dead to me.”

“Huh?” 

He takes another hit and then passes it back to Jimmy. He blows out the smoke and it makes his lungs ache a bit. He tells him. He doesn’t take his eyes off the stars the whole time but he’s aware that Jimmy is staring intently at him.

“Holy shit,” Jimmy breathes out when Tony’s finished.

Tony laughs.

“Holy shit.” Jimmy repeats.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“Tony-” Jimmy starts to protest.

“You can’t tell anyone, Jimmy.”

“Okay.” 

They finish the spliff and stay lying on their backs in the playground, the conversation quickly forgotten when Jimmy starts talking about Tristan Cossnick getting a boner in fourth period gym. Tony spends the rest of the evening listening to Jimmy lamenting on the unfairness of munchies for diabetics, Tony nods along tauntingly eating his third bag of chips.

… 

He hopes that God or Karma or whatever it is that is so intent on making his life miserable is done with him now. At least until high school is over. 


	11. Before twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: shooting and graphic descriptions of blood and gore. Please read carefully!

He tries his hardest not to think about it. He starts drinking again, not like he had before but just when the idea of it makes his chest too tight to sleep. The worst part is everyone keeps talking about it. His teachers, his guidance counselor, Coach, Dad, Gramps, Ducky, Kate, Jimmy, Tobias, Tim, Abby, Leon… fucking Leon never shuts up about it. He just doesn’t want to think about it. He finds himself wishing Jenny was here because she would get it, even though it’s weird. She would smile and say for once in your life, Tony, take the simple way out. She’d say I was scared at your age too, but you’re being irrational. And then she’d tell everyone to shut up about it and it would all be much easier. But she’s not here. Even if she was, he probably wouldn’t be talking to her. He pinches himself every morning when he walks into school to make sure that it’s real. That he’s really this old. That he actually made it to senior year despite, well, everything. He feels like he’s living on borrowed time. 

“Um… I don’t think I want to go to college?” He doesn’t look up from his lap, clipping another paperclip onto the chain he’s making.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to leave home?”

“Is that a question?”

“I guess. I dunno.”

“Do you want to leave home or not?”

“I don’t think that I can leave them.”

“Leave who, Tony?”

Tony shoots him a look, one of Dad’s are-you-really-that-stupid looks. Dr Banks just responds with a raised eyebrow and a challenging curve of his lips.

Tony puts the paperclip chain down. 

“My siblings. I mean, Tim starts high school next year and he’s gonna get eaten alive so I gotta be here.” 

“It’s not your job to look after them, Tony.”

“Come on, doc, that’s bullshit, I’m their brother.”

“Exactly, you’re their brother not their guardian. You cannot keep putting their lives first at the expense of yours.”

“I’m not-”

“Do you want to go to college?”

Tony mulls it over. Kelly knew exactly where she wanted to go to college. She wanted to go to Princetown. Tony has less definitive college plans than a dead twelve year old. He feels like a shit example, he doesn’t say this to Dr Banks.

“I mean, I think so.”

“What would you want to do?”

“Play basketball.”

“Have you thought about where you want to go?”

“I’ve printed a couple of application forms for some places. I’m retaking my SAT in a week.”

“Sounds to me like you do want to go.”

“I can’t leave them.”

“What about Georgetown.”

“Their basketball team is shit.”

Dr Banks laughs, settles his hands on his lap and says, “Why don’t you just fill out your applications, do your SAT and then focus on enjoying your senior year. You don’t have to make any decisions right now but if you apply, at least you have options.”

“Soooo, you’re prescribing procrastination?”

“Oh good, humor to defect. You’d been serious for so long I was starting to worry.”

Tony snorts and starts deconstructing the paperclip chain, putting them back into the pot on the table. 

“Okay, I’ll just apply then.”

“Good.”

***

Tony spends the weekend writing college essays. He’s not even thinking about early application but he wants them done, so he writes them, he fills out the forms and then he puts them in the box under his bed so he doesn’t have to think about them. He’s had a couple meetings with a few different scouts but he hasn’t told anyone about them, only Coach and some of the guys on the team know. His grades aren’t great so that limits his options but it seems like he has a fairly good shot at his favourites.

He flicks through his SAT prep each night but it’s not really studying. He knows he should probably actually try but he can’t really be bothered. Especially because he can only do it in his room, anytime Tim sees him with anything college related his face twists into something sad but he insists he’s fine whenever Tony asks. He thinks the test goes well. He hadn’t even done that badly the first time, he just hadn’t told anyone that. He spends the weekend at Jimmy’s because he doesn’t want Dad and Gramps grilling him on how it went. 

***

He’s walking to lunch with Jimmy and Michelle, who are being sickeningly loved up when he sees Kate practically throwing a book into her locker. He catches Jimmy’s arm and nods to where Kate is, saying he’ll meet them in the cafeteria. He leans against the lockers behind her.

“What’s got your panties in a twist?”

She jumps, hand going over her crucifix, “Jesus, Tony, you scared me.”

She punches him in the shoulder and she already looks a bit happier. 

“Sorry, Kit Kat. Seriously, what’s up with you?”

“Ari was creeping on me Spanish, again.”

Tony glances over and sees the guy looking at them across the hall, the second Tony catches his eye he turns back to his own locker. Tony shivers dramatically, “That guy gives me the heebeegeebees.”

“Yeah well, try having him ask you out everyday for an entire semester.”

Tony fake gags, “Want me to beat him up for you?”

“I’d much rather do it myself, but thanks for offering.” 

She swings her locker closed, nearly taking out Tony’s fingers as he tries to snatch a packet of gum from inside. 

“Hey!”

She rolls her eyes at him, “Hey, how’d your SAT go?”

“Okay, I think.”

“Did you study?”

“Eh, kinda.”

“Tony-”

“I’m not as good at school as you.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“No, Kate, that was what's know as self-deprecation.”

“Oh good, because I thought I’d die before you ever compli-”

Four things happen almost at once. 

Kate jerks, her words cutting off with a wet, choked noise.

Tony flinches back as he feels something wet and hot spray against his face. 

Kate’s knees buckle and he dives forward to catch her as she falls, landing clumsily on top of her.

Then he hears the bang. 

Logically he knows that that is the wrong order. That the bang probably came first. He knows that there are more bangs and people are screaming and running, he knows this but he doesn’t actually hear any of it because Kate. Kate is lying beneath him, staring up at him with glassy, terrified eyes and Tony didn’t know that Kate’s eyes could get that large. His hand clamps down on her neck and he can immediately feel the hot stickiness pooling against his skin. His blood runs cold and it makes the blood feel boiling on his palm. There’s already a pool around her head and it’s congealing her hair into chunks. It’s all over her neck and her face and he knows it’s in her throat because she keeps making these gurgling noises. He can feel the muscles in her neck tense with every breath as he presses his hand harder to stop the blood dripping between his finger tips. 

“Kate.” He says. Or he thinks he says. Maybe he just thinks it, because that’s all he can think.

  
  


_ Kate. Blood. Kate. Blood. Kate. Blood. Blood. So much Blood. Kate’s blood. Kate. Blood. _

He wants to gag, but he can’t tear his eyes away from hers. They’re open, creased around the side in pain and begging but Tony doesn’t think she’s really looking. He wants to stroke her hair and tell her it’s going to be alright but he can’t move his other arm because that’s all that’s stopping him from crushing her. Tony has never been more thankful for coach's love of planks during warm ups. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of the thought, but a part of his brain knows he needs to be as quiet as possible. It’s the same part of his brain that is telling him, screaming at him, that the hallway is the worst place to be. That he should run and hide but he can’t move his hand away from Kate’s neck. Even if he could, he’d never be able to outrun a shooter holding Kate and they’d leave a blood trail to follow. And he’s not gonna leave her so he has no choice but to stay out in the open. He’s going to keep Kate alive or die trying because he is not losing another sister. He desperately tries to remember Abby’s timetable. He doesn’t think she has the same lunch as him so she’s probably in a lesson but he can’t for the life of him remember what it is, where she should be. It halts his breath in his chest, like someone has shoved a stopper down his windpipe. He thanks God that Tim isn’t here. Small mercies. 

Her blood is streaming through his fingers and he can’t apply enough pressure. He pivots his elbow, feeding his supporting arm under her neck and pressing down on his other hand. His arms are shaking with the effort and he can feel the pool of blood on the floor redirect itself along the line of Tony’s forearm. It’s tacky and it’s on both of his hands and the urge to gag is getting stronger. Water splashes on Kate’s face and Tony looks up to see if the sprinkler system has been set off, but it hasn’t. He looks back to Kate and another droplet lands. He realises distantly that he’s crying. He wants to wipe his eyes but he’s using everything in him to stay in place and put pressure on her wound. His right arm is starting to burn with the strain of applying pressure. 

She closes her eyes and his whole body jerks with objection. She moans at being jostled and blinks her eyes back open.

“Sorry, Katie, Sorry.” He whispers, leaning his forehead against hers. “You gotta stay awake.”

He can feel the pull of dry blood on his cheeks as he talks. He can feel the stickiness of the blood on her forehead, congealed but not yet dried, creating a vacuum between their skin. He lifts his head a little so Kate can look at him, or stare vacantly at him. Outside of the bubble he’s in he can hear shouting and gunshots, it sounds like someone has left the TV on upstairs. His mind keeps flicking between Kate and Abby and Kate and Abby and Ka-- Jimmy. There’s nowhere to hide in the cafeteria. Kate spasms beneath him, pain evident in the gurgled sound that comes out and the sheen of her eye. He shushes her.

“You’re going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine. Just stay still and quiet.”

The shouting is getting nearer again but his arms are too tired to hold him anymore. Fuck being inconspicuous. He puts all his weight into his arms and ignores the way his shaking makes Kate’s head wobble. He shuffles his knees up so he’s straddling her rather than lying over her and sits up on his haunches. It’s a relief, even if his arms still burn with lactic acid. He shuts off the part of his brain that is screaming at him to get back down. Telling him that he’s not gonna do Kate any good if he makes himself a target and gets shot. But it doesn’t matter as long as he’s applying pressure. It doesn’t matter if his hands are so slick with blood that they slide away from the wound when he presses down. 

He doesn't notice them. He can’t look away from Kate’s half-mast eyes for long enough to process the words being shouted or the increased footfall beside them. He doesn’t notice until someone grabs his shoulder. He flails, arm jolting to punch the assailant. The torrent of blood that falls from Kate’s neck when he moves to do so has him aborting the movement, slamming his hands back down to the wound with a force that should have made Kate whimper but doesn’t. 

“Kid, we’ve got it from here.”

His eyes focus on the man touching his shoulder instead of Kate and there’s a lag between seeing the black uniform and the white letters and the helmet and the automatic swung over his shoulder and realising that he’s a S.W.A.T. officer. Tony nods but doesn’t move. S.W.A.T. Guy moves his mouth again and gestures towards two people kneeling next to Kate’s head. Paramedics Tony realises. One of them has rubber gloved hands and gauze extended towards Kate’s neck. The second Tony releases his hands, the paramedic’s applying pressure, and Tony tries to untangle his limbs from around her body but he’s struggling because they don’t feel like they're his anymore. S.W.A.T. Guy pulls Tony to his feet and guides his step over Kate’s body as more paramedics move in around her. Tony feels like he’s been taken out of his body. His limbs feel hollow and it’s like he’s looking down at himself. He sees himself sway and S.W.A.T. Guy catches him, holding him up. He keeps trying to say something to Tony but he can’t concentrate because he can no longer see Kate under all the EMTs.

“-Kid?” He feels a gloved hand turn his face away and S.W.A.T. guy has lifted the visor of his helmet and is looking at Tony with furrowed brows.

“Huh?”

“Do you know her name, Kid?”

“Kate,” Tony breathes, tears springing to his eyes. “Caitlin Gibbs,” he says louder. 

He hears the guy relay it to the paramedics but his eyes have drifted over S.W.A.T. Guy’s shoulder to the streams of students being escorted down the hallway. He searches for Abby or Jimmy but doesn’t see either of them. The guy is speaking to him again.

“Huh?”

“What’s your name?”

“Oh. Tony.”

“Tony, I’m Danny,” Tony nods, the guy’s hands on his shoulders still holding him up. He looks back over to Kate and they’re rolling her onto a backboard. Danny taps his face to get his attention back, “You need to get checked out, come on.” 

He tries to pull Tony forward, the way the other kids are being led and Tony feels himself return to his body with a jolt. He plants his feet so all Danny does is make his shoulders twist. 

“I can’t leave her-”

“The paramedics have got her now. There’s nothing else you can do, Kid,” Danny says tugging him gently again.

“No, she’s my sister! I can’t leave her!” Tony has a second to register every feature on Danny’s face make an ‘o’ shape and then he’s sobbing into S.W.A.T. Guy’s bulletproof vest. 

They lift Kate up and begin wheeling her out of the building. Tony stares at the pool of blood, spreading out in boot prints and wheel tracks. There in the center of it is Mom’s crucifix. It’s fully submerged, no gold in sight, just the shape protruding from the red. Tony breaks out of S.W.A.T. Guy’s hold and snatches it up. Danny pulls him away and walks Tony behind Kate’s stretcher towards the waiting ambulances, He has an arm around Tony’s waist and is practically carrying him. Tony barely registers the barricades and the fire trucks and the swarms of people. Danny keeps saying nearly there, Kid, in his ear and it’s kinda nice. His arm is really burning now, which is weird because he let go of Kate eons ago. They're almost at the ambulance when there’s an increase of shouting and Danny stops to look, so so does Tony. They turn just in time to see Jimmy duck under the barricade and an officer's arm. He runs towards them shouting Tony’s name, his eyes almost as big as his glasses. 

“Holy shit, Tony!” He reaches him, barely stopping himself from crashing into Tony. He puts his hands out like he’s going to hug him then thinks better of it and carefully puts his hands on Tony’s shoulder. 

It makes Tony want to cry because he could really use a fucking hug right now and he doesn’t get why Jimmy won’t hug him. 

“Tony, please tell me that’s not your blood?” Jimmy’s voice waivers.

Oh, right. That's why. Tony just sobs. He feels Danny’s arm on his back in a comforting gesture and Tony leans into it. He shakes his head and his eye’s follow the stretcher. They’re loading Kate into the ambulance. Tony needs to go with her. 

“No,” Jimmy says, eyes following Tony’s gaze, “No, no, no. It's not… is that Kate’s bl…?” He trails off, tears in his eyes. 

“I gotta be with her.” 

“Yeah, go, man, go.” 

Danny gets Tony the rest of the way to the ambulance and Tony has one foot on the step when he turns suddenly, flailing and would have fallen if Danny wasn’t still by his side. 

“Abby?” He shouts to Jimmy, who is frozen in place still looking at the ambulance. He snaps straighter at Tony’s shout. 

“She’s okay! She’s with my mom!” Jimmy shouts after him. 

Danny pats his shoulder and tells the EMTs to make sure that he gets checked out at the hospital. Then the door is closed. He wipes the crucifix in his hand clean on his pants before pressing it into Kate’s limp palm. He wraps his own hand around hers to keep it in place. At the hospital he’s dragged away from Kate by a nurse who Tony should definitely be able to take, but his limbs are too busy trying to follow Kate they won’t cooperate. He’s pushed onto a bed and a curtain is drawn around him and suddenly he’s exhausted. The nurse asks if he’s hurt and he just shakes his head, her words floating around him and bouncing off his skin, catching in the papery materials of the curtains. He has that sensation of watching himself again. He can’t feel the nurse pressing her rubbery fingers into his pulse point but he knows she does. The stethoscope on his chest doesn’t feel cold. He can’t look away from his hands because there’s so much blood on them. It’s everywhere. It’s too thick to dry, it just sits on his hands like gloves. The nurse is gone. The sounds from the emergency room seep in around the curtains. Like blood flowing over the floor. He hears Gramp’s voice over the cacophony but he can’t look away from his hands. 

“Where is my grandson?” He sounds angry and scared and Tony doesn’t want him to see all the blood. 

The curtain is ripped back.

“Oh, sweet Jesus.” He strides over and goes to put his hand on Tony’s face but Tony flinches away, the sensation of hot blood flying at his face assaulting him. Gramps slowly lowers his hand to Tony’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, Son.”

Gramps helps him to stand and it makes Tony’s head swim, he wants to rest his head on Gramps shoulder but the tightness of the skin on his face reminds him that there is blood, so much blood. 

“Gramps, Abby can’t see me.”

“She’s with Eunice in the waiting room, she won’t see you, but we need to get this blood off.”

Tony nods and lets Gramps steer him to the washroom. He stands at the sink and looks in the mirror. He looks terrifying. His face looks like it’s been airbrushed with red paint. It’s dry and cracked around his mouth, and the smear on his forehead looks like reptile skin. His shirt is soaked in patches. He can barely see any skin left on his arms. His arm hair is caked in the stuff, standing stiffly away from his skin in dry, powdery clumps. It reminds him of color sprays Abby sometimes uses on her hair.

“Lift your arms, Kiddo.” 

He does and Gramps gently pulls his shirt off, letting it fall to the floor. Tony doesn’t take his eyes off the boy in the reflection. There are patches of pink on his torso where the blood hasn’t quite soaked through his t-shirt. Kate’s bedroom used to be pink. Gramps takes his hands together and holds them under the tap. He’s half scrubbing, half soothing with circular motions. He scoops the water up to Tony’s elbows, rubbing away the blood, wet and dry alike. He flinches at the contact of the water. It’s too thin and too tepid to be blood but he can’t help it. Tony’s arms and hands have been dyed the same pink as his shoulders. Gramps starts in with the soap. Tony watches through the reflection in fascination as Gramps cleans under his his nails with a paper towel. His biceps, his stomach, his chest, his back, his shoulders, his neck are all wiped clean with a warm, damp paper towel. Gramps starts on the left, working from his bicep over his shoulder and down. Tony looks in the reflection and sees blood sliding down his right forearm. Gramps had already cleaned there, hadn’t he? Tony thought he had watched. Is the blood real? Maybe he’s hallucinating.

Gramps catches his eye in the reflection, “Yes, Tony, the blood’s real.” 

He hadn’t realised he’d said that aloud. Gramps looks haunted and Tony doesn’t blame him because he still has blood all over his face and he looks like an extra from  _ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  _ Tony just lifts his arm and watches as the fresh blood drips down into the pink soapy water swirling in the sink. Gramps is on his other side in a second and Tony is instructed to hold a wad of towels to his arm. Gramps puts his hands on his hips and Tony can tell he’s struggling with a decision. 

“I want to be clean.” He says, still looking in the mirror. 

Gramps sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a second to gather himself. Tony can see him putting the walls back up. It’s kind of fascinating. Tony keeps applying pressure, again. Gramps gets back to work with the wet flannels. Eventually Tony is clean. There’s a pink tint to his skin and he wonders if it will ever leave him or if he’ll permanently have this mark of Kate on him. Gramps throws Tony’s shirt in the trash on the way out and Tony thinks it might be a biohazard but he doesn’t say anything. He’s taken through a very full waiting room and brought to a stop in front of Eunice and Jimmy. 

“Where’s Abby?” He asks and his system is flooded with panic. 

“She’s with your dad, honey. They went up to the surgical waiting room as soon as he arrived.” 

The panic leaves and Tony sways where he stands, he’s so tired. He’s manhandled onto a seat by Gramps and Jimmy. Eunice leaves to go find a doctor to stitch up his arm and Tony pities the poor soul. Eunice on a mission is a force to be reckoned with. The thought makes his lip twitch and he looks to his lap expecting to see dry blood from his cheek land there, like dandruff. 

“How’s Kate?”

“She’s still in surgery.”

“You should be with her.”

“I should be with you, son.”

“Okay.”

A doctor stitches his arm in the chair in the waiting room. When he’s finished Gramps gives him his over-shirt. It’s weird seeing Gramps in just a T-shirt but Tony doesn’t mind because the flannel is soft and warm and so, so dry. He asks to go be with Kate, but is handed a hot drink by Jimmy first and told to drink. It’s just hot water. It takes Tony half the cup to realise there’s sugar in it. When he’s drunk the whole thing they go to the elevator and up to the third floor. He stands by himself, looking at the warped face gurning back at him in the elevator doors. Dad is sitting between Tim and Abby, his leg is bouncing up and down and Tony thinks he probably wants to be pacing. He’s not bothering to hide the devastated look on his face. Tim sees them first. He leaps up and throws himself around Tony’s waist. Abby follows suit. Tony wants to put his arms around them but they remain limp at his side, tingling with a taunting numbness. 

“Sorry, we had to wait for someone to stitch him up.” Gramps says tiredly. 

Dad is standing almost immediately, “Stitch him up?”

“It’s just a scratch.” 

“Fourteen stitches is not a scratch, Kiddo.” Gramps says, voice thick with emotion. He’s pulling Tim and Abby away from Tony and come to think of it, that’s weird.

“How’d Tim get here?” 

“Ducky picked him up. He’s here somewhere, getting coffee.” Dad says and then he’s pulling Tony into him. Cradling his head like you do with babies whose necks aren’t fully formed yet. 

Tony doesn’t get it. Dad should hate him. He let Kate get shot. He feels an angry sob build in his chest and he pulls away before it surfaces. 

He fights through the sudden anger that is coursing through him, “Is she gonna make it?”

“I don’t know.” 

His blood is too hot under his skin and he wants to tear his stitches so he can let it out, because it’s so hot it’s going to kill him from the inside out. He turns and starts walking, ignoring his name being called behind him. 


	12. After Twilight

He can barely see as he slams into the restroom. He can feel his chest spasming in panic and he rubs it, pacing the length of the room twice. He cannot lose Kate. He falls against the tiled wall, cheekbone smarting where it hits. He twists, legs tangling up in each other as he slides to the floor. He pulls his knees up protectively, as if the force stopping his lungs from taking in any air was an external one. Something he could protect himself from. His head swings forward of its own command, hitting the knobbly parts of his knees. His chest protests at being crumpled this way. His neck feels like it’s made of jelly when he tries to sit up straight again. The back of his head smashes into the tiles and his body is blissfully unaware of anything else for a moment. And then he can’t stop. 

“-thony! Anthony!” 

And suddenly Ducky’s there, hands holding Tony’s cheeks and eyebrows furrowed deeply with worry. Tony can feel the distinct feeling of flesh behind his head. He knows the feeling of flesh quite well now. Since when did Ducky have three hands? He tries to turn in Ducky’s grip but it’s surprisingly strong. He tries to pull his head back because he doesn’t like not being able to move. Duck only moves his grip to behind Tony’s ears.

“That’s enough. No more of that now, Anthony.” 

He sounds frazzled and Tony feels bad because he knows that’s on him. It’s always on him. But he really wants to figure out the whole three hands thing. He moves slower, taking Ducky’s hands with him as he turns to see a terrified Jimmy squatting next to him. 

“Jimmy?”

“Yeah, Tones, it’s me.”

“Thought you went home?”

Jimmy glances at Ducky in panic.

“No, Tones, I rode up in the elevator with you, remember?”

Tony thinks about it and, oh yeah, Jimmy and his mom had come with them to check on Kate. He can’t lose Kate. 

“Jimmy, my boy, why don’t you go and tell the others we found him. Anthony and I are going to stay here and calm down for a minute and then we’ll join you all in the waiting room.”

Jimmy looks uncertain but Ducky levels him with a glare worthy of Dad and Jimmy nods, patting Tony on the shoulder before he leaves. Ducky lets go and moves to sit next to Tony on the floor, his knees grinding in protest. 

“I can’t do this again, Duck.” 

Ducky takes one of Tony’s shaking hands in his own. 

“I know. Your sister’s a fighter, she’ll pull through.”

“Kelly was a fighter.”

“Not to be morbid, my dear boy, but Kelly never made it to surgery, so Kate’s prospects are already significantly better. Thanks to you.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered if it would have been different if I’d been in the car.”

“Tony, no one could have survived that acc-”

“Why is it never me? Why is it always them?” His neck clicks with the speed he turns to face Ducky. Eyes desperately searching for an answer he knows Ducky doesn’t have. 

“Tony, you have had more near death experiences than anyone I know. If anything, it is always you.”

“But I always live. Why do I always live and the people I love don’t?” Tears are streaming down his face again, snot pooling in the back of his throat, making it hard to get the words out. 

“She’s not dead, Anthony, you cannot think like that.”

He nods only to end up sobbing into Ducky’s lap. Hand scrabbling desperately for purchase in the material of Ducky’s jacket. He doesn’t know how long he’s there for, he cries himself dry and then Duck just holds him until the cold from the tiles has sunk into his bones and Tony is so still he wonders if he’ll ever be able to move from this position again. He hears the door open but he doesn’t pull his head away from where Ducky is supporting it. He can feel from the shift in Ducky’s body that it’s someone they know. 

“Any news on Caitlin?”

“They’ve still got aways to go, but she’s holding her own,” Tobias’ voice is rough but his relief is noticeable. “Think they could use you to translate the gobbledygook the docs have been spouting though. I got it from here.”

Tony props himself up against the wall again and Tobias helps Ducky to his feet. They squeeze each other's shoulders as they swap places. Tony watches Ducky leave from his spot on the floor. Tobias moves to stand over him, hand outstretched.

“Come on, Kiddo, time to get up.”

Tony lets his head loll back, eyes meeting Tobias, “I’m tired, Fornell. Jus’ gonna stay here.”

Tobias’ hand turns to a point, “One, you don’t call me that. Two, you know I can’t let you do that.”

Tony just blinks up at him.

“Kid, don’t make me use your sense of responsibility to get you out of here. You have a complicated enough guilt complex already.” 

Tony huffs a laugh and it’s a hollow, broken sound. Tobias flinches at it. Tony pretends he doesn't and grabs Tobias’ hand, pushing against the wall until he’s standing. His limbs all hurt and he feels as if there’s a bubble of static electricity encasing him. Tobias pulls him into a hug the second he’s standing on his own two feet. He pulls his arms over Tony’s shoulders even though Tony is now taller than him by a fair amount and Tony feels that forcefield fade away until he feels like a child again. 

They walk back to the waiting room in silence. They’re about to round the corner to where the others are sitting when Tobias says quietly, “They got the kid. He resisted arrest so they…” He trails off as Tony flinches, feeling the spray of Kate’s blood on his face once more. He thinks he can feel where each individual droplet landed. 

Tony stops in the middle of the hallway. Takes a deep breath and pulls his hands up inside the sleeves of Gramps’ shirt. He would happily never look at his hands again. 

“It’s more than he deserves.” 

Tobias squeezes his shoulder and Tony realises that he could never work law enforcement after this. They join the others, Tony sits between Tim and Jimmy. Jimmy slips his hand into Tony’s and squeezes as a way of greeting. Tony raises his arm, despite the pull of his stitches, and Tim wiggles under, pressing himself into Tony’s side and clenching his shirt so tightly his nails dig into Tony's chest. Abby comes from Dad’s other side, laying herself across the three Gibbs’ lap, head in Tony’s, feet in Dad's. His three uncles sit on the other side and Gramps sits next to Dad, supporting but not touching. And they wait. And wait. And wait. Leon goes first. He hugs Dad which Tony isn’t sure he’s ever seen happen before. He kisses Abby on the cheek, making her cry again and smoothes a hand over Tim’s hair. He pauses before Tony, hand outstretched like he wants to comfort him but he’s clearly perturbed by the fact that Tony is nearly an adult. He eventually settles his hand on Tony’s shoulder, leans in and whispers.

“Good job today, Tony. You’re the bravest kid I’ve ever met.”

Tears glisten in Tony’s eyes, emotions and memories swirling in his mind, giving him a headache. He nods slightly in response. Tobias leaves next, saying he needs to tuck Em in tonight and Tony doesn’t resent him leaving for a second. He kisses each of them on the top of the head, even Jimmy. It’s near the five hour mark when Eunice says she and Jimmy should be going home now. Jimmy tells her no, that he’s not going anywhere and it’s the first time Tony has ever seen Jimmy stand up to her. It’s the first time he’s seen anyone stand up to her. She flounders for a second.

“Jimmy, honey-”

“I can drive Jimmy here home when he’s ready, Mrs. Palmer.” Ducky offers, coming stand next to her, charm dial turned on full. Jimmy and Tony grin at each other when she instantly melts. She kisses Jimmy goodbye and pats Tony on the cheek. 

It’s not long after that a doctor comes out. They all stand instantly. 

“She’s out of surgery,” after that everything she says sounds like he’s hearing it from inside a ringing bell. “There were some complications with blood clots so she’s not out of the woods yet. We’re going to set her up in the ICU. If she pulls through the next twenty-four hours she has a sporting chance.” 

They wait a little longer and eventually a nurse comes and says that Kate has been settled. Ducky talks her into letting each of them see Kate for a minute. Tony goes first.

…

She looks bad. She looks really, really bad. Her skin is kind of grey and she has a tube in her mouth. Her hair is in greasy clumps from whatever they used to clean the blood out. He kisses the top of her head, closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the way her skin is nearly translucent and all her veins are visible. 

“I need you, Kate.”

As he exits the room to head for the new waiting room they’ve relocated themselves to a nurse catches his hand. She’s pretty, with big eyes and curly hair. 

“Are you her brother?”

Tony nods. 

She smiles, “The EMTs told us what you did. You probably saved her life.”

Tony swallows and looks away. 

“She was holding this when she came in, I thought you might want it.” She holds out Mom’s crucifix, carefully so as not to let it fall from the broken chain. 

When Tony makes no move to take it, she puts it into his hand. 

He speaks around the lump in his throat, “Thank you…” He looks up in question.

“Carly.”

“Thank you, Carly.” 

Gramps takes everyone home after they’ve seen Kate. Tony refuses to leave unless Dad does too, so they end up staying. Jimmy refuses to leave Tony so he ends up staying too. Dad falls asleep in his chair. 

“Michelle and I hid the janitor’s closet.”

Tony realises that he never asked. That the second he’d seen Jimmy was unharmed he’d forgotten they’d even been through the same thing. What had Abby been through? He feels the familiar swirl of guilt start up in his gut. He squeezes Jimmy’s hand. 

“I heard Mr. Richardson begging for his life. Like actually begging, sobbing and going on about his wife.” Jimmy sobs quietly, glancing at Dad to check he hadn’t woken him. “I looked. I know I shouldn’t have and Shell was begging me not to but I looked through the keyhole. I saw him shoot him. Right between the eyes. His brain was… like… the wall was covered… his brain just… everywhere.” 

Tony tightens his hand around Jimmy’s once more. The feel of Kate’s blood searing into his face drop by drop assaulting him again. He can still taste it in his mouth. 

“He walked away… just like,” Jimmy licks his lip and pinches himself through his jeans, “Wanders off to go… And I couldn’t stop looking. I swear I was just starting until S.W.A.T… and his eyes were open.”

Tony lays his head on Jimmy’s shoulder and Jimmy lays his on top. They sit and wait for morning, Dad snoring next to them.

…

“I actually don’t remember much of it.” He looks up at Dr. Banks’ carefully schooled expression. “It’s like one minute I’m talking to Kate about my SAT and then the next I’m visiting her in the ICU.”

“That’s not unusual. Our brain often represses traumatic memories in order to protect us.”

“Are you going to make me unpick them.”

“No, you may never get them back. I am going to make you unpick your feelings, any nightmares, anxiety, depression you may be experiencing,” he waves his hand, “You get the gist.”

Tony nods. He doesn’t say anything. He wants to, he doesn’t know what he wants to say but he wants to. It feels like the first few sessions he’d had, when he’d refused to open up in case the words scarred on the way up. He feels like all the improvements he has made on himself were wiped away with Kate’s blood.

“Do you blame yourself, Tony?”

He looks out the window, his hand coming to settle over his stomach. His empty stomach because he can barely keep anything down with the way his stomach churns every second of every minute with guilt.

“Tony, answer my question please.”

“I know it’s not my fault.”

“That’s not quite what I asked. Do you feel guilty about what happened to Kate?”

“I know I saved her.”

“Do you feel guilt?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Banks waits him out.

“He was staring at us. Before he opened fire he was staring at us. He was obsessed with her. He always gave me a bad feeling… and I turned away when he went into his locker. If I’d kept looking I would have seen him pull the gun out… I could have… pushed her out the way… got her to safety. Probably stopped some other people getting shot.”

“That’s possible.” He pauses, waiting for Tony to make eye contact, “Or he would have seen you looking at him and shot you first.”

“Would that have been so bad?”

“Yes, I believe it would. What you have been through, some people will never recover from that, and you, Tony, have lived through more than one situation like that. So, I believe that you can work through this too. I do not believe that it will be a straightforward or quick journey, but it’s one you can make. Tony, I am all too familiar with your self-worth issues and I think that is something we should work back up to, so for today I'll put it into terms that I know you can understand. Who would have kept Kate alive had you been shot?”

…

Kate wakes up and the school reopens. Tony goes to school, where it is quiet and in the hallways it feels like everyone is leaving room for the people that are no longer there. Tony goes to basketball practice and has to stop himself from shouting out for Cohen to pass him the ball. He fuels all his feelings into basketball and he plays better than ever. They all do. They refuse to let coach pull them out of nationals, even a man down. The scouts from Ohio State offer him a scholarship. He goes to the hospital everyday and 'does' his homework by Kates bedside. He wakes up most nights with Kate’s name tearing itself from his lips but he never remembers the dreams. Gramps cradles him back to sleep each night. He doesn’t drink because, as good as his idiot act is, he’s smart enough to know he wouldn’t be able to stop it this time. Kate’s still in the hospital come Christmas but the doctors say not long now.

…

“What’d you get on your SAT in the end?” Jimmy asks one day over lunch. They’ve started eating on the bleachers even though it’s fucking freezing. 

Tony thinks about the envelope sitting in the box under his bed with his filled out college applications and all the other things he can't bear to think about. He smirks around his sandwich. Jimmy laughs and Michelle quirks her brow in the way that she only ever does when she’s irritated at not speaking their language. They don’t leave her out on purpose, in fact, Tony is a big fan of Michelle and they hang out together without Jimmy quite a lot. It’s just that Jimmy was seemingly born with the innate ability to see through all of Tony’s bullshit and he’s been using that particular talent to learn to speak ‘Tony’ since they were twelve. 

“Fine, what’d you tell your Dad you got?” Jimmy asks. 

“Nine-fifty. Combined.”

Jimmy laughs again, “He believed you?”

Tony nods.

“And he didn’t kill you?”

“Honestly, Jimmy, I think he’s just relieved I didn’t fail out right.”

“No way he believes you’re that stupid.” Michelle protests.

“They all do,” Jimmy says. “Have done since he was like eight.”

"Hey! Nine-fifty does not mean you're stupid. Intelligence can't be measured by standardised testing anyway." Tony interrupts desperate to change the subject.

“What did you actually get?” Michelle pushes, “Like fifteen-ninety?” 

Tony smiles despite himself, “Yeah, something like that.”

“So above average.” Michelle nods to herself and Tony thinks it’s half out of irritation and half out of fondness. 

The conversation moves on and Tony doesn’t mention that it's not like he can even go to college now. 

***

He’s fake reading a book from his English class and eating the chocolate pudding, but mostly watching her sleep when she scares the shit out of him. 

“The deadline for sending your college applications is next Tuesday.”

He jumps clear out of his skin, the pudding and plastic spoon flying in the air before decorating his sweatshirt and pant leg.

“Jesus, Katie! You made me spill my pudding.”

“My pudding and you’re avoiding the subject.”

He gives up trying to wipe himself clean and looks at her. Her skin is mostly back to skin color now, her eyes have a shadow of their former sparkle but it’s better than nothing. She levels him with a look that tells him he was doing a shitty job at hiding just how much this has broken his heart. 

“You’re going to college, Tony.” She tells him firmly.

“Kate, I can’t,” and, yeah okay, his voice definitely cracks when he says it. 

“Tony, I won’t be the reason you don’t go to college.”

“You can’t play on my guilt complex, Katie, that’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair. You’re sending those applications or I’m banning you from my visitor list.”

“Like Carly would let you, and besides you’re coming home in a few days.”

“Tony, I’m serious. You’re going to college.”

“Okay, I’ll post them when I get home.”

“Good.” She settles herself in bed more comfortably, “And you owe me a chocolate pudding.”

He holds out his chocolate covered sleeve for her and she groans in disgusts before laughing. His chest flutters at the sight and he thinks for a second he’s having a heart attack. That his heart has been so severely damaged that it can’t handle this happiness. But then Kate is groaning at how much laughing is hurting her and he’s laughing too and his heart can handle it after all. 

…

Abby cries when he tells them.

“Ohio?” She says mascara tinted tears pooling at her chin. 

“It’s barely two states away.” He tries to reason. 

“Tony!” She groans. 

“We’ll I’m proud of you, Son.” Gramps says, patting him on the shoulder.

Kate smiles at him and holds his hand, her pride surrounding her like a halo and Tony grins back at her. 

“You promised you wouldn’t disappear again.” Tim says quietly from the corner.

Tony goes to kneel in front of him, “I’m not disappearing, Tim. I’m going to college. It’s an hour by plane and I’ll be back for all the holidays I swear.” 

Tim nods, pretends he’s not crying and refuses to let Tony hug him. Tony turns when he hears footsteps leaving the kitchen. He rises to his feet.

“Dad?” He calls to his retreating back. 

All he gets in reply is the slam of the basement door and the audible click of the lock being put in place. 


	13. Home and all that comes with it

Dad avoids him for most of the summer. The night before he leaves they have a big family dinner. They’d started doing them again after Kate was released from hospital. They’re like a rubber band, Tony thinks. His family is like a rubber band. Every time someone puts stress on it it either pulls apart or together. Abby hangs off him like a limpet and once Em starts crying the other kids follow suit and the atmosphere is dampened slightly. But Tony feels like he’s viewing the whole evening through a sepia lens, like in the films when they tint flashbacks yellow to show they were happier times. He and Jimmy drink a beer with his uncles in the backyard and Dad joins, sipping silently. They build a pillow fort in the living room at Abby’s behest and fall asleep watching Karate Kid. Again. In the morning Jimmy and he pack his boxes and bags into his car and Tony has to face his goodbyes.

He hugs each of his siblings until he’s about to cry. And then hugs Abby a little extra because she refuses to let go.

“You call me if you need anything.”

“That’s what I’m here for, Tony, remember?” Gramps asks and pulls Tony into a hug. He does cry a little during that one. 

He and Jimmy cling to each other like fucking girls but it’s actually breaking his heart to leave them all. 

“Keep an eye on them for me?”

“You know it man.”

“Look after yourself!”

“You too, Tones.”

They hug again.

“Hey! That’s not fair you hugged Jimmy for waaaaay longer than you hugged me!” Abby whines going in for another. 

Tony pulls Tim in and then Kate and Jimmy are joining too. 

Tony pulls away, “I’ll be back at Thanksgiving.”

He turns to where Dad is waiting off at the side.

“Dad?”

Dad tugs him into a hug, cradling the back of his head, “Atta boy.”

Tony swears he nearly breaks right there. 

…

College seems quiet compared to home which is a weird thought considering Tony has been at a party pretty much every night since he arrived. The thing is, and Tony discovers this only after the first two weeks, it’s a hell of a lot easier to breathe outside of the Gibbs’ house. He feels lighter than he has in years. Some days he swears he could just float away he feels so light. He calls home weekly and he listens to Abby talk about school and Kate talk about college applications and Tim talk about being a freshman. Only Gramps and Kate ever ask how he’s doing. He tells them good, because it’s true. He itches to get off the phone. Literally, his legs bounce with pent up energy as Abby recounts her third story of that day and he wants to hang up but he can’t because it’s his duty as big brother to listen to anything Abby says. Call me if you need anything he’d said. 

Tony finds himself entirely surrounded by people who can’t tell he’s wearing a mask and he thrives. He thrives so much that sometimes he’s not even sure he’s faking anymore. Sometimes he’s genuinely just having so much fun he turns into an idiot. Like a little kid. And he’s having so much sex! He seems to be an actual chick magnet. He can’t walk through the quad without getting at least one phone number. His work comes easily to him and he stops pretending that he’s not smart because no one here really cares, he’s already at college. He does well on the basketball team, he fits right in. He’s good but not in a way that intimidates the older players. He gets practically adopted by the captain, Mike. He feels like he’s living for the first time in a long time. He feels so good he ‘forgets’ to find a local therapist or even sign up for the counselling services provided by the college. For once he just wants to be the guy who isn’t fucked in the head, even if it comes back to bite him in the ass.

He lucks out in the roommate department, Brad is the best. He’s like if you wrapped Tony and Jimmy into one person, that person would be Brad. He fills a bit of the burn of being without Jimmy for the first time six years. He sees Tony in the same way. Actually looks and sees. Always watch the watchers Dad says. By Thanksgiving break they’re inseparable. Tony is dreading Thanksgiving. He’s let the phone calls lapse a bit. Every other week at first and then every now and then when he remembers. It’s been three weeks since he called home. He always answers when one of them calls but the less he’s called the less they have. He and Brad are packing their bags when Brad says, 

“You wanna spend Thanksgiving at mine? My mom always makes extra.”

Tony is tempted. He’s really tempted because he doesn’t want to go home and not be able to breathe again. Not to mention the fact that he’s going to have to deal with how shitty and absent he’s been. He’s already getting the cold shoulder from Dad and now he’s gonna get it from everyone else. So yeah, he’s tempted, but he’s made this bed so now he has to lie in it.

“I would, man, but my plane ticket is already booked. My Dad would kill me if I wasted that.”

“No problem. You’re welcome anytime.”

“Thanks, dude, you too.”

He doesn’t take his headphones off once before getting to Washington. Even when the stewardess asks him extra nicely with cherries on top because she’s about to do the safety routine. Gramps and Abby are waiting for him at the gate. Abby launches herself on him and knocks the air from his lungs and the duffel from his hand.

“You’re alive! You went radio silent and I thought that you were dead!”

“Not dead, just busy. I’m sorry, Abs.” He kisses her cheek.

She kisses his cheek in return, “That’s okay, college is exciting I get it.”

He smiles and she picks up his duffel for him. Gramps pats him on the shoulder and walks them to the car. Abby talks and talks and Tony sits in the front and counts his breathing out, nodding at appropriate moments. He has missed her, missed her more than he realised but he’s tired from partying and he’s starting to get a headache. Not to mention the lack of Tim at the airport means he’s mad at Tony. It’s fifty-fifty if Kate is mad or just frenzy studying. The house looks smaller than it did when he left. It’s only five days, he can survive it. The thought makes something unpleasant bubble in his gut. This is not what coming home should feel like. He’s aware. Tim is mad and Kate was just studying. He agrees to watch  _ Seed of Chucky  _ with Abby, even though it’s the worst one and it creeps him out in all the ways a horror movie should not. Dinner is awkward. 

“Is your roommate nice?”

“Yeah, he’s great. We’re really good friends.”

“What’s his name?” Gramps says after a long silence.

“Brad Pitt.”

Tim snorts and it’s the closest he’s come to acknowledging Tony yet.

“I’m serious. No relation to the actor though.”

“Is he as hot as the actor?”

“Yeah, Katie, I think he’s just your type. He’s Pre-med.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Sporty too. We’re going to join a frat together.”

“Oh, and there goes my interest.”

It’s silent apart from the scrape of forks.

“So, how’s basketball?” Gramp asks at the same time Tim says, “Why’d you stop calling?”

Tony pushes his plate away. 

“Um, I got a bit wrapped up in college life, you know? There’s always something happening and I just ended up… I got distracted. I’m sorry. I’ve really missed you all though.”

Tim seems to mull it over and then, “Okay”

He hasn’t forgiven him. Dinner is mostly silent after that. Dad gets home late and pats Tony on the back as a way of greeting before going straight to the shower and then to bed. Tony texts Jimmy asking him to meet at the park later. Kate comes into his room with a bag of marshmallows that Tony knows is for the pie Abby is going to make but he doesn’t say anything as Kate opens it. 

“Is it weird being home?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t as hard to be away as I thought it would be.”

“I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re always right, whatever.” He shoves a handful of marshmallows into his mouth.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. You’re just off. Also there’s clearly something going on with you because you stopped calling us but not Jimmy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad, Tony, just worried.”

“Tim’s mad.”

“Yeah, because you promised you wouldn’t disappear on him and then you did. Stop avoiding the question.”

“I dunno. I guess, I kinda… Like I was no longer responsible for you guys. Like I felt free- not that you’re a burden- but it just felt good to have my own place. I think I just got a bit carried away in that feeling.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah. I’m really happy at College. I think I’ve found my place.”

“Okay. Good.”

She takes the bag with her as she leaves.

“Hey!”

“Oh, no, you implied I was a burden, you do not get my marshmallows.”

“Kate! I did not.”

“Eh, kind of feels like you did though.” She waves the bag taunting through the door as she goes. 

…

Ducky has Thanksgiving dinner at his house. The Vances don’t come because Jackie’s parents are in town but everyone else is there. Including Cassie, Tony likes her, not like he liked Jenny, but Cassie is hot and she has a soft spot for Tony. He has slipped back into his big brother role with startling ease. It takes him twenty four hours to get Tim to forgive him. He feels weighted by it, like he’s trying to run through water. By the last day he feels like he’s sleepwalking.

Christmas is worse.

He doesn’t come home for spring break.


	14. Pull and Release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW discussion of eating disorders.

Brad invites him on vacation with his family for the first half of summer break. The Gibbs’ never go anywhere on vacation. Not since Mom died so Tony readily accepts. He doesn’t tell Gramps and Dad until after he’s bought the plane ticket so they can’t tell him no. They go to Mexico and Tony swears he’s living in an episode of _The O.C._ or something. Brad’s parents are chill. Like, suspiciously chill. They basically give Brad and Tony free run of the place, no curfew, the only rules are they have to check in and they have to be back in the morning. He learns to surf and pisses Brad off by being naturally good at it, like everything else, Brad huffs. They all give Tony a hug when they get back to Pitt’s house. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come stay in Michigan for a few weeks, sweetie? It’s not Mexico but it’s a lot of fun!”

Tony thinks that Brad has shared his less than complementary feelings about Jethro with his parents. They seem very insistent that he should not go home and Tony feels the tug of want in his stomach but he smiles his most charming smile and says,

“Thank you, Charlene, I know first hand how much fun you are-”

“Gross, dude. Stop flirting with my mom.” Brad mutters in his ear, only making him smile more.

“But I really miss home.”

“Okay, son, if you’re sure.” Mr. Pitt says.

“Thank you again for such an amazing vacation.”

“No problem, sweetie.” She pats his hand sadly once before he goes and it makes something unpleasant lodge inside his chest. 

It stays with him all the way to D.C. Which is a long way. He pulls up to the house late in the evening, his car still stacked with everything from his dorm. He’s been driving for ten hours straight and he’s not entirely sure that his limbs are still attached to his central mass. He leaves everything in the car, he can unpack tomorrow. He walks up to the front door, getting his keys out just in case it’s locked, which it never is, and he suddenly can’t remember if he told anyone when he was getting back. They hadn’t talked while he was in Mexico because the international calls were too expensive. Kate had told him that Dad was worried about the mortgage or something so he tells himself that’s why he didn’t call. To save money. He wonders if the same thing will happen to Kate next year when she goes to Harvard or if she’s just better than him. The door is unlocked. He walks in and hears voices in the kitchen, he’s tempted to try and sneak past, just go straight to his room but he knows he’d probably get caught. Even so, he closes the door quietly behind him. He makes it all of four steps before Abby notices him from the entranceway. 

“Tony!” She pulls him into a hug and he kisses the top of her hair, closing his eyes.

He wishes he could go to sleep and maybe just never wake up. He thinks that’s a weird thing to think so he opens his eyes as quickly as he can. 

“Tony, we didn’t know you would be home, we would have waited for you.” Gramps says and Tony thinks he looks way older than he remembers. “I’ll make you a plate.” He goes to stand but Dad motions him back down and gets up, which is definitely weird. 

“I stopped for dinner.” Dad stops, his hands on the back of his chair, he looks tense. “I’ve been driving for, like, ten hours so I’m pretty beat.”

“Right.” Dad says and sits back down. 

Kate gets up and gives him a hug, Abby is still holding his hand. He’s so tired he swears he could hit the deck any second. He’s surprised when Tim runs over to give him a hug too. He’d kinda figured that at fifteen Tim would be too cool for hugs or something. Or maybe he was just expecting him to stay mad. Maybe they’ve lowered their expectations. That’d be okay, maybe he could meet them now. Tim clings on for a second too long and it raises alarm bells in Tony’s head but he’s too tired to try and figure out all the weirdness being directed his way. He says night one more time before he shuffles off to bed. He forgoes the shower, flopping down on top of his covers still fully clothed. 

He sleeps for fourteen hours, emerging from his room to hear the clang of plates downstairs that means lunch. He heads straight for the shower, stays under the spray until the water runs cold. He cries and he’s not quite sure why. He hears Jimmy’s voice as he comes downstairs. He misses what he says but Gramps replies 

“He was barely here five minutes before he went to bed.”

“Mornin’” He grumbles as he enters the kitchen, stealing a rasher of bacon off a plate, Gramps slaps him upside the head. 

“Technically it’s afternoon.” Jimmy says slinging his arm around Tony’s shoulder. Tony feels something in him dissipate and he wraps his arm around Jimmy’s waist in return. 

“Get a room.” Tim grumbles squeezing past them to enter the kitchen. 

“Whadda say, Jim, think we make a cute couple?”

“Oh, I’ve waited so long for you to ask.” 

He and Jimmy turn towards each other, tongues out and in slow motion pretend to make out. Tim groans and covers his eyes and Gramps stops them when Tony starts making grunting noises. 

“Urg, that’s so gay.”

“Gosh, Timmy, when did you become so astute?” Tony goads. “Besides, it’s only gay if your tongues actually touch.” He reaches over to bop Tim on the nose, just to really piss him off. 

“Okay boys, stop touching, sit eat.” Abby says popping up from behind the counter holding a tray and Tony physically jumps. 

“Lunch!” Abby yells and Tony had forgotten how loud she was. He has to remind himself to breathe. 

Kate appears a minute later. Nobody mentions his radio silence and he tells the more PG stories about Mexico. He pretends not to notice Abby snatching the plate of bacon away from Gramps or the way Kate has positioned her chair closer than necessary. He talks over the general tenseness that means his family is up to something. His brain keeps cycling back to Jimmy and Gramps talking in the kitchen and he tries to think of any and every thing Jimmy could have said that would have gotten that response in that tone Gramps reserves for when he’s feeling out of his child-rearing-depths. He is less subtle about noticing the way Tim is pushing his food around his plate and only eating every third forkful. He shoots Kate a glance and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly. She’ll fill him in later. Jimmy tells him about his family trip to Vancouver which was as boring as it sounds. Tim has apparently been spending his summer playing computer games which is no surprise. Abby talks enthusiastically about the science camp that she went on and Tony struggles to get a smile on his face when she’s talking because he hadn’t known anything about it. By the end of lunch his lungs are starting to spasm and the walls of the kitchen seem a little bit closer than they had half an hour ago. He silently longs for Michigan and then pinches himself under the table for wanting that. He insists on doing the washing up and Jimmy offers to dry up, but mostly just stands next to the sink talking and occasionally whipping Tony with the dish towel. Tony uses the warmth of the water around his hands to try and calm himself. He doesn’t know why being home makes his nerves so frayed and he thinks he probably doesn’t want to know the answer. 

The feeling that there’s something being hidden from him continues. If anything it increases. He’s been back almost a week and still no one’s said anything. They’re having dinner, Dad is home early for once which means he should be drinking beer but he’s not. It puts Tony on edge, or as on edge as he can be given he’s high. He’s found that smoking pot quiets the thrum under his skin that he hasn’t been able to shake otherwise. It makes the weight of the air in the house seem intentional which makes everything a bit easier. Tim is halfway through explaining something about computers that absolutely no one is getting when Tony hears himself speak. Blame the weed.

“So what’s the big secret?”

Tim doesn’t even look offended, just nervous and that’s when Tony realises that this must be something pretty big. Everyone seems to put their forks down in unison and Tony wants to laugh but that’s probably also the weed.

“Hello? Anyone?”

“Tony,” Dad says and it sounds like he can’t work out if it's supposed to be comforting or warning. 

“I had a cardiac event.” Gramps says calmly. 

“Like, a heart attack?”

“Sort of. I’m fine.”

“You didn’t call me.” It’s supposed to be a statement but it sounds more like a question.

“You were in Mexico, we didn’t want to ruin your fun.”

“Bullshit.”

“Anthony!” Dad scolds.

“I’m sorry, Tones, I should have told you sooner.”

Tony’s chest feels tight and he takes a deep breath. He notices Abby, shifting unhappily in her chair, shoot a look at Kate.

“And what else?”

“They think it was stress induced,” Tony just stares at him blankly. “I’m a stroke risk.”

“Okay?” Gramps’ expression is grave and he gets that this is going somewhere darker he just doesn’t get where.

“Frankly, Tony, they think I’m too old to be looking after four teenagers. I’m going to move back home.”

“Home?”

“Stillwater.”

“But who’s going to look after Tim and Abby?”

“I will.” Dad says.

Tony doesn’t mean to snort but he does. He sees Dad’s nostrils flare in indignation. 

“You’re hardly ever here.”

“I’m nearly sixteen so real-”

“Tim, don’t.” Tony says levelling his fork in Tim’s direction. 

“They’re responsible kids.” Dad’s volume is rising.

“Doesn’t mean they should raise themselves.” So is Tony’s.

“Guys!” Kate says sharply, “Stress-free environment, remember.”

Tony slinks back into his seat. 

“Who’s going to look after you in Stillwater?”

“What? I don’t need looking after.”

“You just said that you were a stroke risk.”

“There’s nothing in Stillwater that’s stressful enough to cause a stroke. Just a lot of fishing and the store.”

“You’re too old to watch Tim play video games but you’re gonna go back to running the store?”

“Tony,” Gramps sighs tiredly. “L.G. is going to keep running the store like he has the last ten years, I’m just going to help out so I don’t die of boredom. It is my store after all.”

Tony can feel his blood beginning to itch again even through the high. He hugs his arms around himself and pinches the back of each arm until he can think again. The whole table is silent.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Gramps asks, looking to Kate for some guidance, she crinkles her brow in confusion.

“I’ll transfer to Georgetown and then I can live at home and look after Tim and Abby.”

“Tony, no.” Gramps says. Tony turns to argue with him but stops when he sees just how hard Dad’s expression has become. Cue explosion in three, two, one.

“I am their father!” Tony wants to laugh at the obviousness of the statement and the unnecessary venom with which it’s said. 

“You’re a fucking prop. Sit down.” Dad is up and tugging Tony out of his chair, fist bunched in Tony’s shirt and Tony can see the stress of nearly losing Gramps bubbling to the surface. 

“Dad!” Kate and Abby shout at the same time.

“Nice one, Dad. Super great parenting. You’re gonna do wonders with two moody teenagers.” Tony sneers into his face. The picture of a steaming bull and a red flag flashes through his mind.

“You’re high at the dinner table. I hardly think you’re the poster boy for responsible _parenting_.” Dad snarls, face inches from Tony’s but he loosens his grip on Tony’s shirt.

“I wonder if that’s because I had an absentee dad.” Tony wants this fight, he’s not teasing anymore he wants Dad to get angry. He wants, no he needs, more. He wonders what it would take for Dad to hit him.

Dad lets go and head slaps him. It’s not hard, no harder than usual, and Tony recognizes it as affection. This only riles him up more.

“Get out. Come back when you’re sober.”

Tony goes. He walks to the nearest park and lies on a bench until he doesn’t have to consciously breathe anymore. It’s dark when he heads back and he knows that Dad will be waiting for him. He is, sitting on the coach with his head in his hands. 

“Sit.” He says gruffly. 

Tony does, on the arm chair opposite, keeping the coffee table between them. He’s no longer itching for a fight. He just wants to sleep. 

“I’m sorry.” Dad says.

“What?”

“Tony.” Dad warns 

“I’m sorry too.”

“I do my best, I know it’s not much.”

“Dad…” Tony feels guilt ripple through him, from his head to his toes.

“I depend on you, Tony.” He looks up, “And that’s not fair. You had to grow up too quickly and I know you like to hide behind your clown face but I’m your father and I see the change in you.”

“They’re just kids.”

“So are you.” He wrings his hands, “I’ll do better by them, I promise.”

“I was serious about the transfer.”

“I know you were.” Dad stands and comes around the coffee table, he cups his hand around Tony’s face. “Not happening, kid.”

Tony feels tears pricking in his eyes, “Are we ever gonna stop doing this?” 

“I don’t know.” Dad says and presses his lips to the top of Tony’s head which he hasn’t done in years. 

Tony stands, pats Dad’s chest as he pushes past and heads for bed.

“You’ve got an appointment with Dr. Banks in the morning.”

Tony just nods without turning around. He can’t wait for the summer to end.

…

“Why do you always have to wind him up like that?”

“Come on, Kate, like you weren’t thinking it.”

“I have concerns, yes, but I know how to raise them without causing World War Three.”

“Yeah, well we can’t all be perfect, Miss Harvard.”

Kate just rolls her eyes and adjusts her sunglasses. 

“So Tim’s eating?”

“He got made fun of for being fat so he lost some weight but I don’t think he did it very healthily. He’s been weird about it ever since.”

“Has he seen a psychiatrist?”

“We’re trying.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“That fills me with confidence after last night.”

Tony just shakes his head and flops down in the grass. 

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you.” 

“That’s okay, Kit Kat, there’s plenty of shit that I don’t tell you.”

She pops up on her elbows, “Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She punches him in the arm. He tugs her pigtail. 

…

Tony’s sitting on the kitchen counter in the dark eating a PopTart, waiting for Tim to get back from his Dungeon and Dragons party-thing. He always comes in the back door, he thinks he’s being sneaky. 

“Hey, McSuperSpy.” He says casually around his bite.

Tim jumps sky high. 

“Jesus, Tony. You gave me a heart attack.”

“Hope not.” Tony says putting another PopTart in the toaster. “So you’ve stopped eating, huh?”

See, Kate, he can be tactful.

“What?”

“You’ve skipped lunch twice in the last week and when you do eat you mostly just push your food around.”

“You wouldn’t get it. All you ever eat is junk food and you never get fat.”

“Fair enough. But you know it’s not healthy, Tim.”

“It is!”

“Then why won’t you see a therapist?”

“Because I don’t need to.”

“You know, Tim. Our family has been through more shit than a soap opera family. I honestly wouldn’t blink an eye at an evil uncle turning up tomorrow. It’s okay not to be okay. I’m not.”

“I know, but I don’t need it.”

“I used to say that every time someone brought it up. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to a therapist. I only agreed because Jenny blackmailed me.”

“She did?”

“Oh yeah. But Dr. Banks is cool. Probably saved my life.”

Time seems to realise the gravity of that statement, Tony sees his whole body language shift and hops off the counter just in time to hold him for the first sob.

“If I go to a therapist they’ll put me on a meal plan and I don’t want that.”

“I know, buddy, but I promise you that after some time and a bit of work that is not gonna seem like such a bad thing. I love you, Tim. I need you. So you’re gonna get better for me, okay?”

Tim nods into his t-shirt, and for a second, a split second he’s sitting in a church pew holding Tim who is crying a wet patch into his shirt. God, Tony is actually losing his mind.

…

“He’s not gonna stick to a meal plan if he’s not eating with an adult each night.”

“Well what do you suggest?”

“They could eat at Ducky’s house each evening?”

“No. His mother is barely there.”

“Leon and Jackie?”

“You don’t think he’d be self-conscious being monitored in front of the others?”

“I don’t think that’s the important thing here, Kate.” Tony says.

“Okay, I’ll talk to Leon about it tomorrow.” Dad says and goes to get himself a beer. 

…

Kate leaves a week before Tony. He drives her to the airport. Kate cries. Tony doesn’t. He’s counting down the days before he can leave too.

...

She’s an exchange student and she is not at all interested in Tony. They make it a game. The take turns, Mondays through Wednesday when he sees her he flirts with her and she rejects him. Thursday through Sunday he rejects her. They make eye contact while making out with other people at house parties. He has his hand up LuLu something’s skirt when she raises her eyebrows challengingly from behind her red cup. Is that the best you can do? She gets with Rory McAlster and Tony accidentally spills his drink on LuLu. They’re debating whether it’s ‘For all intensive purposes’ or ‘For all extensive purposes’ when Brad loops an arm around each of their shoulders and says,

“For the love of God, just sleep together already!”

Tony smiles triumphantly at Ziva and she just rolls her eyes at him, but there’s a sock on his door in the next fifteen minutes. They sort of accidentally become friends after that. Once they start sleeping together the whole thing becomes slightly less charged, but they get on well enough and the sex is great. Sometimes, when they’ve finished and she’s rolled out of his bed and gone back to hers he thinks about Jeanne. He still sleeps with other girls and Ziva pretends not to get jealous. She sleeps with other guys in return and he genuinely doesn’t care. They never try to label whatever it is. There are feelings there, but other than great sex, not much more that with his other friends. He thinks. For now. Whatever, the sex is on another level so it doesn’t really matter.

…

He goes home at Thanksgiving and Brad comes with him. Tim looks way healthier than when Tony last saw him and Kate is loving Harvard. Abby is stressing over her SATs which is stupid because she’s a bonafide genius. He can’t believe that Abby is a Junior, he keeps looking at her and expecting to see a five year old who can’t stop crying because no one can get her pigtails quite like Mommy did them. Other than that entirely sick thought, Tony is happy. He mourns the loss of freedom that home brings but he’s happy. Brad and Jimmy get on like a house on fire and the three of them spend almost every waking hour together. Life is on the ups. Tony knows that is never good news.

…

He’s barely been back at college for two weeks when his phone rings in the middle of a lecture. He gets it out to turn it off only to see it’s from Leon. He shuffles out of his row as quietly as he can but he sees his professor clock him leaving. By the time he’s out of the lecture hall the phone has stopped ringing. It starts up again almost immediately.

  
  


“Uncle Leon?”

“Tony…” Tony feels his butt hit the floor, “There was an explosion. He’s alive but you should get on the next flight.”


	15. Jethro

He looks awful. His face is red and blistered. His head is wrapped in bandages and there’s a breathing tube down his throat and they say he may never wake up. Tony does his best not to cry. He doesn’t think Dad would like it.‘Men don’t cry, right, Dad?’ He whispers. But the thing is he is facing the very real possibility of being an orphan here and he’s not sure how long the no crying rule is gonna last. Abby hasn’t left his side since she arrived. She’s crammed into a chair covered in vinyl and it squeaks every time she moves. Tim is conked out half in his chair, half on the foot of Dad’s bed. Kate hasn’t been able to get a flight yet. 

After two days of the four of them camping out in his room Tobias rounds them up and ushers them out.

“What if he wakes up and we’re not there?” Abby wails.

“Abs, you’ve been in that room for three days, you need a shower and a proper bed. The nurses have started filing complaints.” Tobias says tiredly.

“We should be with him.” Tim agrees, stealing a look over his shoulder as they’re herded into an elevator.

It’s achingly similar to a couple of years ago and Tony feels a shiver run down his spine. He grabs for Kate in a second of blind panic. She squeezes his hand reassuringly. 

“You will go home, sleep in a real bed, eat some food, or Jethro and Diane will have my head. Ducky is with him and when you are all fully rejuvenated you can take shifts.”

Tim and Abby both start protesting, but Tony says their names in a quiet warning and they suck it up with minimal pouting. Tobias shoots him a glance that is equal parts thankful and guilty. Tony keeps catching him looking at him in the rear view mirror on the drive home. Abby showers first and Tony waits outside the door, listening to her crying. When she emerges he hands her the pink pyjama set Dad had given her for Christmas. She tears up a little again. She and Kate curl up together in Kate’s room and fall asleep almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Tim goes next and goes straight to his own bed. Tony tries to fall asleep. He thinks it will be easy, he had nearly nodded off a couple times in the car, but he can’t. He creeps down the hall, keeping an ear out for Tobias in the kitchen. It takes Tony a second to realise that it hasn’t been recarpeted, that it’s just a thick layer of dust making the taupe look dark grey and Tony can’t remember the last time he was in here. He goes straight to the closet. It’s a lot smaller, or maybe he’s a lot bigger, he barely fits. His knees are pressed tightly into his chest to the point where he’s practically folded in half. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to get back up again but he finds he doesn’t really care. It doesn’t smell of her anymore. It smells musty and of mothballs but her smell that had lingered for so long is gone. He can’t remember thinking anything after that so he must fall asleep. 

…

They divide the shifts as follows, Tim from nine AM to three PM (on the condition that he does school work at the hospital), Abby from three PM to nine PM (on the condition that she goes to school), Kate from nine PM to three AM, Tony from three AM to nine AM. Tony makes sure he gets this shift because he’s read studies about how people tend to die at four AM and he will not let his siblings witness that if he can help it. None of the conscious adults are happy about it, they tried to argue that that is not what they had meant by shifts, but they were up against the infamous Gibbs’ suborness times four so they lost. 

He makes it through his third four AM on Tony’s watch. Ducky shows up at seven, he comes everyday before work and then whenever he’s not needed on base he’s there. He and Tony sit on either side of the bed, each holding a hand. They don’t speak. Dad wakes up fighting. Literally. He panics, sits up ramrod straight and tries to pull the tube out, Tony is quick to intercept him which earns him a fist to the face.

“Ah!” He falls back against his chair. 

The room seems to swarm with doctors and nurses, one of whom pulls him away and draws the curtain between Tony and his Dad so he can’t see anything. She’s sturdy looking and holds his head under the light and inspects his eye. Tony is trying to listen to what’s happening but all he can hear is a lot of beeping and some gagging over the doctors’ voices.

“Looks okay, but you’re going to get one hell of a bruise tomorrow.” The nurse says. She smiles sympathetically at him, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He says and reaches for the curtain, she puts a hand out to stop him.

“Let me just check how they’re doing first.” Her tone leaves no room for questions so Tony nods.

He steps closer and he hears Dad’s raspy voice.

“Where’s Shannon? Is she here? Is Kelly?” Tony sucks in a sharp breath and hears Ducky do the same.

“No, Jethro they’re not here. But Anthony is here.”

“Tony’s here?”

Tony opens the curtain, he can see how stiffly everyone is standing. He can’t quite tell if he’s breathing. 

“Yeah, I’m here.”

Dad looks at him and Tony knows, he just knows, in that second that he has no idea who he is.

“You’re not Private DiNozzo.”

Tony sucks in another shaking breath, pinches his leg to ground himself and does his best to put on a soothing smile, “No, no I’m not.”

“Who are you, then?” Tony looks to Ducky in panic. Ducky’s mouth is hanging open and Tony swears he can see a red ‘Error’ sign flashing in his eyes. Dad follows Tony’s gaze, “And who the fuck are you? Where is my wife?”

Tony can’t do this, he cannot do this. Not again. His ears start ringing, like his brain has set off some delayed alarm bell. He sees the doctor give Ducky a nod, sees Ducky’s mouth moving but he can’t hear what he’s saying. He knows, logically he knows, what he’s saying but his brain refuses to process it. Dad makes a noise, it’s somewhere between a scream, a shout and a sob. Tony doesn’t hear the noise itself but it makes the ringing stop. Dad crumples to the bed like a puppet whose strings have been cut and he just fucking weeps. Tony feels his knees buckle and the sturdy nurse catches him. He doesn’t protest when she leads him out because he doesn’t want to see this. 

…

“I want to see him! If he’s awake why can’t we see him?”

“If you sit down I will explain it to you.” Tony says trying to be patient. 

Abby pouts but sits, Tim leans against the wall and Tony guesses that’s as good as he’s going to get. He sits between Kate and Abby and takes each of their hands. His hands are shaking slightly and he tells himself it's from the three cups of coffee he’s had since Dad woke up. He opens his mouth and tries to say the words but he can’t get them out. Kate squeezes his hand reassuringly.

“Dad had a pretty serious head injury and he’s having some trouble with his memory-”

“What do you mean trouble with his memory?” Tim asks urgently.

“He’s lost a few years-”

“Well, how many years?” Abby presses, her hand has become clammy in Tony’s.

“He thinks he was injured in the corps. He thinks Mom and Kelly are still alive.”

“He what?” Says Kate and her face is as white as the wall behind her. 

“Can we see him now?” Tim says starting towards his room.

Tony jumps up, putting a had to his chest to stop him, “Not right now-”

“Why not?” Tim shouts.

“He’s just been told his wife and child are dead, Tim, he’s not in the mood for visitors.” Tony bites back harsher than he means too.

“I want to see my dad, Tony!” Tim yells, he’s desperate and he’s angry.

Tony wills himself to stay calm, “He’s just been told he has four kids he has no memory of, he’s a mess. He sees you, Tim, it might just flip him over the edge.”

“He’ll remember when he sees us,” Tim pushes against him again. 

Tony feels something in his stomach snap, he shoves Tim back harshly enough to make him stumble, “We don’t fucking exist to him!” He bellows. 

He can feel his words bouncing off the walls around them. He can feel the eyes of the whole ward on them. He’s not expecting the punch. Tim gets him right in the nose and it’s harder than he would have thought Tim capable of.

“Jesus Christ!” He cups his nose as blood starts seeping through his fingers, eyes watering instantly. “What is it with people today?”

“Oh, God! Tones, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Tony says through his hands. 

The nurse from earlier suddenly appears. She sits him down away from the others and inspects his nose, she decides it’s not broken. 

“Good thing you punch like a girl, huh?” Tony says coming over to rejoin them, holding a bunch of tissues to his still bleeding nose.

Tim bursts into tears. Tony slides to the floor with him, wrapping him in his arms and holding him tight enough to feel each rib against his arm. He looks over at Kate doing the same for Abby. They link eyes and Tony can feel the tears building in his eyes at the same rate he can see them building in hers. God, he wants his fucking Mom. 

…

The doctors keep him in the hospital. They all spend hours trying to jog his memory with stories. He has a short fuse and often ends up kicking them out of the room. He’s scared Abby to tears a couple of times with his shouting. It’s like he’s possessed, foaming at the mouth and snarling. On Thursday he throws his lunch tray at Tim. He barely misses. Tony is secretly glad that Tim punched him because both his eyes have swollen and bruised and no one questions why one is a little worse than the other. Okay, a lot worse. On Friday Tim says he doesn’t feel like visiting, Abby bursts into tears admitting she can’t face it today either. Kate stays to look after them. Tony takes a photo album with him. One that Kate had put together from Jenny’s pictures. Dad spends a long time looking at the ones from before the accident. He looks at one of Kelly holding Tony just after he was born. He runs his fingers over each of Kelly’s features. The next picture is of Mom and Dad. They’re both cramped onto a hospital bed. Mom is smiling at the camera but Dad has been distracted by the baby. He traces Mom like he had Kelly. He looks up at Tony.

“You have her eyes.”

“Yeah. We all do, apart from Tim. His are blue, like yours.”

“Kelly has blue eyes.” Dad corrects.

Tony swallows, “Yeah, Kelly had blue eyes."

Dad hums agitatedly and continues to flick through. Tony is waiting for him to explode, he’s oddly calm and it’s unnerving. He reaches a photo of Abby at about eleven, pre-goth. 

“She dyes her hair?”

“Um, yeah.” His palms are suddenly sweaty and he wipes them on his pant legs. “She doesn’t like having red hair.”

“She looks so like her mother.” 

“Yeah, I… uh, I think that’s why she doesn’t like it.” 

Dad flinches and snaps the album shut. He tosses it back to Tony hard enough to bruise and Tony takes that as his cue to leave. 

“Did I do that?”

“What?”

“Your face.”

“Oh. No. Tim.” He sees relief flicker across Dad’s face “It looks worse than it is.” 

He nods and heads towards the door again. Then he stops. “Who is Private DiNozzo?”

“What?”

“When Ducky said my name you were expecting Private DiNozzo. Who is he?”

“You don’t know him?”

Tony shakes his head.

“Guess that explains why I named you after him.” Dad says and a dark look that Tony has become a little too familiar with passes over his face. Tony edges towards the door a little.

“Sorry.” He says. He puts the photo album on the chair by the door before he leaves, just in case Dad changes his mind. 

…

The house is noisy when he enters and Tony is immediately filled with adrenaline. The house has been anything but noisy since he came back and he’s too tired to break up a fight or something right now. It makes a little more sense when Jimmy greets him with a grounding hug. Tony tucks his head into the crook of Jimmy’s neck and allows himself one sob. 

“Rough day?” 

Tony nods and gathers himself back in again.

“I’ve got something to cheer you up!” Jimmy says and his smile is so bright and genuine. 

“Is it a shotgun?” Tony asks, kicking off his shoes. 

“Not quite!” 

“Brad?” They close the space and hug each other.

“Hey brother.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We came to offer mortal support.” Ziva says from behind him, and how did she even get there?

“Moral, not mortal, Ziva.” He says turning to her.

“What happened to your face?”

“Tim decided to go all Rocky on my ass.”

“What does that mean?”

“Rocky? 1977 classic?” Ziva blinks at him blankly, “Sylvester Stallone?”

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Watch more movies.”

“Okaaay,” Jimmy says walking between the two of them, “Pizza time.”

They settle around the living room and eat straight from the box, for a minute it feels like they’re just kids enjoying an adult free Friday night for no special reason. 

“At least three slices, Tim.”

“I know, Tony. You’re not my dad.” He whines.

“No, I know your fucking name though.” Tony says. 

The whole room freezes. It’s Kate that laughs first, it’s a startled squawk. 

“I’m sorry,” she says between giggles but soon Tony is joining her. Then Tim and Abby and then they’re all laughing. 

…

Jimmy and Brad stay over in Gramps’ old room seeing as none of the uncles are staying over tonight. Ziva says she’ll take the pull out couch but after everyone’s settled she winds up in Tony’s room. 

“As sexy as you are, I’m too tired for sex tonight, Ziva.”

“I never thought I would see the day. But actually, I am here as a friend.”

She sits on the bed next to him, and brushes his hair away from his face. 

“Did Timothy really do this?” She asks, poking the edge of his eye. The flip from comfort to pain gives him whiplash.

“Most of it.”

She nods, kisses his cheek and goes to leave. She gets to the door then she turns and says, “It will be alright, Tony.”

…

They bum around the house in the morning when the others go to hospital. It lifts Tony’s spirits more than he can say. Or maybe, just in a way that he can’t describe because he’s not exactly happy but he feels less like he’s standing on a tightrope with his whole family stacked on his shoulders. In the afternoon the four of them go to the hospital to relieve the others. 

“He’s really cranky today.” Abby says wiping away mascara tinted tear tracks. 

Tony kisses the crown of her head. “Okay, I’ll tread lightly. You guys go get some rest.”

“Want me to come in with you?” Jimmy asks, glancing nervously towards Dad’s room.

“No, I’m good.”

“Okay, man, we’ll be here if you need us.” Brad pats him encouragingly on the shoulder.

Dad is asleep when Tony enters and he’s quietly glad for it. He slides his hand into Dad’s and it’s warm and calloused and feels like home. Tony can’t help but wonder how different this would all be if Mom was still alive. Or even Jenny, she’d surely be able to kick some sense into him. He accidently tightens his grip and Dad jerks awake, going for Tony’s throat.

“Easy tiger.” Tony says jumping out of reach, “It’s just me.” Dad stares at him for a second. “Your son, Tony.” He adds.

Dad just sits up in his bed. Tony sits back down and it’s quiet for a long time. A really long time. Tony takes out his phone and starts playing a game just so he can do something other than watch Dad stare at a wall and pretend he doesn’t exist. 

“Do we get along?” He jumps so high he drops his phone.

“Uh, not exactly.”

Dad just looks at him and Tony likes to imagine that if it weren’t burnt and blistered he’d be raising an eyebrow. 

“You work a lot and you weren’t really around after… when I was younger. We don’t speak much, you’re hard to impress and you’re not… affectionate, I guess. When we do talk, we fight and _then_ you’ll tell me you love me and you’ll do better…” he pauses, “Rinse and repeat.”

Dad is looking at him and it’s like he’s a completely different person. Tony doesn’t recognize the look at all, he has no idea how to interpret it.

“You saying I’m a bad father?” However much his face has changed, Tony can still recognize barely contained anger in his voice.

“No. I’m saying we have a bad relationship.”

“Which you think is my fault.”

“Relationships are two way streets.”

Dad doesn’t seem pacified. “What about before…”

It’s the first time Tony has heard Dad acknowledge the accident without having a complete meltdown. 

He wants to lie. He wants to say he doesn’t remember. If things were normal, he would and then Dad would see through the lie but not say anything. Tony doesn’t think this man would recognise a lie if it exploded in his face. Somehow it takes the appeal of lying away completely. So he tells the truth. What’s left to lose?

“You worked a lot then too, but you liked being at home more. You and Mom used to argue about drinking quite a lot. You used to argue about me a lot as well. You, honestly, you didn’t like me all that much. Mom once said you were obsessed with turning me into one of your soldiers. I used to hide in Kelly’s room so you wouldn’t see my cry. Still do actually.” 

“Were you likable?”

“No, I was a little shit.”

“Then you can’t really blame me.”

Tony thought, yes I can, because nothing I ever did was good enough so I stopped trying very young. Tony thought, it never made Mom like me less. Tony thought, fuck you. But Dad was getting a bit red in the face and his jaw had hardened. The doctors said try not to rile him up where you can help it.

“No, I can’t, Jethro.” Because that was the truth. The man in this bed was Jethro not Dad. 

“Get out.”

“Sure.” 

He walks out and all three of his friends jump to their feet. He can’t breathe. He might have woken up, he might even get his memory back, but in all likelihood Tony has lost his Dad forever. He feels hands on him and it makes everything worse. He wants his Mom. He’s not sure how much longer he can keep doing this without her. Surely eleven years is long enough. Surely he’s paid his karmic dues by now. He hears Jimmy’s voice low and soft and mildly panicked in his ear. Gradually the hospital waiting room rebuilds itself in his vision. He’s sitting on the floor next to Dad’s room. 

“You with us?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“I don’t want to go home right now.”

“Oh. Well, my mom made me promise to get your dad some balloons or something, why don’t we go down to the gift shop and you can choose whatever you think he’ll hate the least?” Brad says.

Tony feels a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in his chest but he agrees.

“You all go, I will catch up with you in a moment.”

Tony’s too frazzled to care what Ziva is up to. He lets Brad and Jimmy guide him down to the gift shop.

...

He would have made her come with them if he'd known all hell would break loose. 

Dad remembers. Not everything but enough. He tells the doctors who call Ducky who runs into Tony outside the hospital. Tony is holding the most obnoxious balloons they had in the gift shop and starting to get suspicious about how long Ziva has been doing whatever she’s been doing. 

“Ducky?”

“Anthony! What are you doing down here, I thought you’d be with Jethro.”

“I was but he’s being a dick today.”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“He remembered.”

“He what?”

The doctors do all their tests and scans and say a load of stuff that only Ducky, Jimmy and Brad understand. Tony realises he has a lot of doctors, or doctors-to-be, in his life. The others get there in record time only to be made to sit in the waiting room for hours on end. It’s not joyous. There’s something distinctly positive buzzing in the atmosphere but Jethro has been so far removed from what they are used to that they all know not to get their hopes up. Eventually someone was bound to snap. Tony had his money on Abby but he was wrong.

“What did you say to him?” He says rounding on Ziva.

“Tim!” Kate warns

“What, you don’t think it’s suspicious that he’s been surrounded by his family since he woke up and nothing, then Tony’s girlfriend shows up, spends five minutes alone with him and he remembers?!”

“I’m not his girlfriend.”

“What ever you are, you’re dumb enough to sleep with him.”

“Okay, cool it, McAsshole.” Tony says coming to stand in front of Tim. “I get it you’re upset, it’s upsetting. But it’s also not important. It was a coincidence, Timmy. What is important is that Dad remembers, that’s good.”

“Don’t call me Timmy!”

“Could people please stop picking up on the least important parts!” Tony begs because he just wants some damn sanity back. 

“Everyone calm down.” Leon says with authority. 

They go back to sitting in silence. Ziva deliberately puts a row of chairs between Tony and herself. He doesn’t really care. Eventually Ducky comes out and says that they want to keep him overnight and they’ll review discharging him in the morning so everyone go home. 

…

There’s one more bump in the road before they discharge him. His old commander, Franks, shows up. Jethro remembers him fine. He spends the night by Jethro’s bed and when they all turn up in the morning he’s been invited to stay at the Gibbs’ house. Jethro is discharged into the care of Ducky. Ziva and Brad go back to Ohio to let the family sort themselves out. Tony can’t thank them enough. 

The house is too full, with all of them, Ducky and Franks. It’s like there’s no room to breathe, everytime you turn a corner someone is there. They’re all running over each other's toes. It’s also clear that Jethro doesn’t remember as much as they first thought. He walks around the house like a ghost. He forgets Tim’s name three times in one day. He gets confused any time someone says Tony’s name and refers to him as DiNozzo and then the room will go quiet and everyone will stop until Jethro catches up. Tony doesn’t fail to notice the way Franks’ face scrunches up each time. By the third day of him being home people have stopped calling him by his name and it feels a bit like he’s been erased. They struggle on for two more days. Franks announces he’s heading off and puts his packed bag by the front door before they have dinner. Dad is unusually relaxed. He disappears the second they finish eating, it’s not unusual but Tony’s gut is screaming at him. 

They’re still clearing up from dinner when he comes downstairs with a suitcase, he walks straight past them in the kitchen and puts his bag down by the front door, next to Franks’. Tony drops the plates he’s holding and goes after him. 

“Jethro?” He senses the others gathering around him. He feels Abby flinch at Tony calling him that.

He walks over and puts his hand on Tony’s shoulder. Tony can’t breathe. “You’ll do.” And Tony looks at him, his brow scrunched in confusion, because what the fuck does that mean? “You’re in charge now.”

He goes to Tim, holds him by the nape of his neck and tells him he’s a good man and Tim just says, “Dad?” 

Tony agrees. Tony agrees wholeheartedly because all that is going through his head is Dad? Dad? Dad?

Abby says it next and she’s already crying. “Daddy?” She says and her voice breaks Tony’s heart but Jethro shushes her before she can say anything else and he kisses her on the cheek. 

Kate shakes her head. He takes her by the shoulders and she shakes her head. “No, Dad, No.” Dad just kisses the top of her head. 

“Give us a ride to the airport, Duck?” It’s not really a question.

“Jethro-” His voice breaks.

“Duck.” Jethro counters before he can say anything else, there’s something in his voice, something that makes Tony’s blood run cold.

Ducky nods and starts towards the front door. He stops and squeezes Tony’s hand. He watches them walk down the driveway, put the bags in the trunk. The other three have huddled together behind him but all Tony can think is, Dad? He rushes after them and gets to the driveway just as Jethro puts his hand on the car door. 

“She’d be so ashamed of you. You know that? She’d be so fucking disgusted by you right now.” He shouts after him. 

Jethro doesn’t reply, just gets in the car. 

…

Rinse. 


	16. Anthony

Tobias turns up first. Tony doesn’t know how long it's been. He hasn’t moved. He’s sitting on the concrete of the driveway, the front door is still open and he can hear the others crying so he guesses they’re still by the doorway. Tobias gets out of the car and Diane gets out the other side. Tony recognises the fury in his posture. He strides over to Tony and hoists him up by the armpits. It’s a weirdly gentle action. Diane strokes his head and walks past, going to the others. Tobias is still trying to get Tony to take his own weight when he hears Diane speak.

“Come on. Up, on to the sofa.” Her voice is soothing and gentle and Tony wants Mom. “That’s it.” 

“Tonio, Kid, help me out here.” Tobias says still holding him up. 

Tony stands. Leon pulls up to the house. 

“Tony?” He says and he pulls him into a bone crushing hug. Tony thinks it's the first time Leon’s ever hugged him. 

They stand in front of him and they stare at him. 

“He left me in charge.” His voice is quiet and wobbly and it makes it sound like a question. 

“Alright, Tonio, let’s go inside?” Tobias turns him around and nudges him forward. Tony goes. He hears Tobias turn to Leon and whisper with a ferocity Tony cannot compute in that moment, “Second B’s for bastard.” 

Tony feels a smile ghost across his face, like a twitch. He sits on the armchair opposite the couch and stares at his siblings. Abby is no longer crying, she has tears in her eyes but she’s not doing anything about them. She’s starting straight forward and Tony has to watch her chest to make sure she’s breathing. Tim is swallowing convulsively. Kate is staring at him. She’s staring at him with that ‘tell me what to do’ look that she had after the accident. The first accident. Tony supposes there have been quite a few accidents in this family. The three adults - and Tony realises that he’s an adult now too, legally anyway - are huddled in the archway arguing. Tony hears another car pull up. Ducky comes through the front door and three heads snap to him hoping to see another figure behind him but the door closes and it’s just him. Abby starts crying again. 

Tony stands, “I should call Gramps.” 

“Anthony, I think you should sit down.” 

“No, I’m going to call Gramps.”

He goes to the backyard. Gramps picks up on the second ring.

“Tony?”

“He’s gone.”

“What? But… but they discharged him… he was fine.”

“He left.”

“He what?”

“He left me in charge.”

He can hear the way Gramps’ breath changes, he can hear him stammering, saying he doesn’t understand and Tony doesn’t either. 

“I thought I should keep you updated.”

“Tony what are you talki-”

“He left us. Bye, Gramps. Love you.” He hangs up. 

He throws his phone against the wall of the house. It smashes and suddenly he’s crying. Weeping like a fucking baby. He curls in on himself, grabbing and tugging at his hair because he can’t think. He can’t think and he can’t breathe and he can’t do this. He sucks in air and his vocal cords tighten and gurgle in stuttering sobs. He feels like he’s being wrung out, from the chest up, until he can’t cry or breathe anymore. He just, he wants it to stop. He hears himself wail before he’s choking in another breath that hurts his throat and catches on the spit and tears in his mouth. He grinds his palms into his eyes. His skin slips across his face from the wetness. He doesn’t understand how he has lost control so quickly. He thumps a fist down into the grass. And tries to breathe. Air is entering his lungs like it’s coming from a leaky tap. He wipes his face on his shirt. Combs his hair with his fingers. Stands and thumps his chest twice, hard enough to bruise, and then he goes inside. 

The others are huddled on the sofa, now clutching mugs of tea and Diane has draped a blanket over them. She’s got Kate by the shoulders. 

“Go to bed.” Tony says and he watches a chill run up Kate’s spine. 

“What?” Abby hiccups. 

“Go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Tony?” Abby wails. 

If he thought he had it in him he would pick her up and carry her himself, but as it is he’s not sure that there’s anything inside of him at all. 

“All of you, go to bed.” He says taking the blanket from around Tim’s shoulders and pulling him to standing. 

Abby clings to Kate in protest. Kate opens her mouth and Tony just looks at her. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say but Kate must know because she whispers that he’s right and takes Abby upstairs. He turns, his hands on his hips and he stares at his three uncles. For the first time in his life he thinks it’s sad. He thinks it’s sad that this is what their family is made up of.

“I’ll call my college in the morning, see if Brad can bring my stuff home.”

“Tony, you are not dropping out of college-” Leon starts.

“He left me in charge-”

“A pat on the shoulder does not make you their legal guardian. There is nothing offia-”

“I will not leave them too.” 

Tobias sighs and steps towards him, “Tony I think we should take some time and think about the options here.”

“What options? Hm?” He flails his arm towards them, “What you and Diane take them, Leon and Ducky alternate weekends and I walk away, go back to my frat and my parties and my basketball? Is that what’s best here?”

“Calm down-”

“No, Ducky, tell me what my options are here? Because I don’t see an outcome where I go to college instead of doing what was asked of me and they forgive me.” 

Tobias sees that they’re not winning this fight tonight, “Okay. Okay, but you know you are not alone in this.”

Tony hates him in that moment because Tony has been alone in this since he was eight years old. He nods anyway because he’s willing to let these people think they’re helping. 

“Go home to your kids. I’ve got it.” He says. Leon starts to argue, “If you’re really that worried Ducky can stay, but please, go home and hug your kids.”

He goes to his room. He takes the bottle of vodka that he’s had in the box under his bed since he was sixteen. He doesn’t drink it, he just holds it. He can’t lose himself now. 

…

His coach at college refuses to let him drop out, he persuades him and the board to give him the year out instead, saying, wait and see what’s happening next semester, son. Tony squeezes the phone so hard he hears the plastic crack. He wishes people would stop calling him that. Stop thinking it’s a comfort and not a swift punch in the gut. 

“You’re going back to Harvard.” He says walking into her room, throwing the piece of paper down on the table, “Your flight leaves at eleven on Sunday.” 

“What? Tony, no.”

“You’re going, Kate.”

‘No I am not.”

“Kate, you are getting on that flight if I have to drag you kicking and screaming.” 

“Will you stop with the martyr act?” She shouts. “I am not leaving you.”

“Kate, I’m not going to let you throw your life away.”

“Right, that’s your thing.” She says sourly and Tony feels it burn on his skin, on his face, just like her blood had.

“Katie-”

“No. I can’t leave because I need you. I need to be here.” And she has angry tears brimming in her eyes. 

He wraps her in his arms and rests his chin on her head. He closes his eyes and feels the warmth of her. 

“I need you to go. I’m already putting my life on pause and I can’t let you do that too. I need you to go, go to lectures and go to parties even if they’re with your nerdy law school friends. So you gotta go, for both of us.” 

She shakes her head against his chest.

“Kate, I got this. You’re getting on that plane on Sunday and you’re going to college and I am going to live vicariously through you.” 

He pulls back and wipes her tears away with his thumbs.

“You’re an asshole.” 

He winks and pulls her back in under his chin. 

…

Ducky comes for dinner each night. The others too. Tony hates it. He feels monitored. Logically he knows they are trying to help but it feels like they’re just waiting for him to fuck up so they can say Aha, we told you so! and take Tim and Abby away. Jethro’s seat at the head of the table remains empty. Tony always sits stiffly and spends more time monitoring Tim’s plate than eating off his own. He knows Tim will slip soon, he can feel it coming. He tries his best to eat so he can’t be called a hypocrite but it’s hard because he truly has no appetite. Tim is sullen and defiant. Abby is clingy, wants him to be around all the time but is never actually satisfied by his presence. He ghosts around the house for the first week. He either ends up in Kelly’s room, he even bothers to vacuum it one day; sitting on Mom’s side of the bed looking at the empty nightstand, he tries to remember everything she used to keep on there; or in the basement, there's the start of a new boat, just the skeleton and Tony sits and stares at it and wonders what happened to the old one. He spends as much time as he can with Jimmy but his stay-at-home-Dad schedule rarely lines up with Jimmy’s busy-med-student schedule. He doesn't mind, he wants Jimmy to have fun. Weekdays are his favourite because everyone’s doing things and he can get high. He lies in the backyard and smokes. He doesn’t drink and somehow that makes him think it’s okay. He will not turn into his father. He stares at the tree at the end of the lawn. It still has the rotting wooden platform from the treehouse Jethro had been building before the accident. Tony throws a rock at it and a plank crashes to the ground, it bends slightly as it lands from damp and age. It scares the birds out of the trees. Tony gets a job. 

It’s just hauling goods down at the wharf. Tim makes jokes about him being a neanderthal laborer. Tony head slaps him and tells him to get his head out of his entitled ass. He enjoys the work. He enjoys that he can turn off completely and just let his body do the work. He likes that it keeps him fit and he can talk to the other guys without a crushing weight being attached to every word. He likes the water. It’s nearly black with grime and there’s always plastic floating around if you look properly but it’s still calming. In the evenings when he can’t sleep he does college work. He can’t let go of that little bit of hope that next year will be different. He knows it won’t but it’s not like he’s gonna sleep anyway. 

…

“Tim, can you eat please.” 

“I have.”

Tony grits his teeth and feels the handle of his fork dig into his palm. “Well could you eat some more then?” He smiles tightly.

“It’s too much.”

“It’s not too much, it’s exactly the same as every other lunch.”

“It’s too much. I'm full.” 

“Sure you are.” Tony says and abandons his pretence of eating too. He gets up and makes himself another coffee. “I’m calling your therapist.”

“Might be more helpful if you called yours,” Tim says venomously. 

“Yeah, Tim, you’re probably right.” He gulps down the coffee and grimaces as it burns his tongue and throat. They both feel swollen when he says, “Now finish your meal.” His tone is so icy that he half expects it to soothe the burning sensation but it doesn’t. 

Tim’s face twists, “Stop trying to be Dad. You’re not Dad.”

“Thank God. I wouldn’t want to be.”

“I don’t know what he was thinking leaving you in charge. You can barely look after yourself, you’re such a fuck up.”

“Neither do I!” Tony shouts, thumping his fist against the wall. “But he did, so you’re just gonna have to listen to me! Starting by finishing your fucking food and dealing with your shit in a healthier way.”

“Like you?” Tim sneers.

“No, Tim. I hope to God that you never end up like me.”

He calls Ducky to watch them that night and gets so high he can’t remember his name. It feels like freedom. At least, until he wakes up the next morning in a park he doesn't recognise with a killer headache and a detached tingling in all his limbs.

…

They spend Christmas at the Fornell’s. It’s a shit show. He’s tired. He’s been trying to keep a good face for Kate and now for Em but he’s fallen out of practice. His voice has changed from being used less. Kate is also trying to get everyone in the holiday mood but Abby keeps crying and Tim hasn’t uncrossed his arms since they arrived. Tobias keeps refilling his wine glass, Tony gets them all out the second dessert is finished. Their house is cold and empty, despite Abby’s and Kate’s attempts at decorating. 

Tony is in the kitchen pouring himself some coffee because he can't sleep anyway. He hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on, the neighbor's fairy lights shedding enough light through the windows for him to see what he was doing. 

“He didn’t even call.”

“Fuck!” He jumps at the sound of Abby’s voice and spills the coffee down his arm. It’s really fucking hot. “Shit! Fuck!” He says waving it around to cool it down as he moves over to the sink.

“I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry,” and then she’s crying. 

Tony takes his hand from under the cold tap even though he should probably keep it there for a while longer. 

“It’s okay, Abs. I’m okay.” 

She barrels into his chest and sobs. He’s so bored of comforting crying people. He knows that sounds horrible but he just can’t stand it anymore. He rubs her back and shushes her anyway.

“He doesn’t even love us enough to call on Christmas!”

“He loves you, Abs.” He doesn’t think that’s a lie. Jethro will always love Abby. “He just doesn’t remember. It’s not about how much he loves you.”

“But he just left us with you!” She wails again clinging to his shirt. 

He holds her until she stops crying and goes back to bed. He walks to Jimmy’s house and collapses onto his bed. He doesn’t cry. Just lies next to Jimmy and says. 

“I fucking hate this.” And then he sleeps for what feels like the first time in a very long time.

…

“Tony, I would like you to reconsider the antidepressants. I know you’ve been reluctant in the past-”

“Sure, doc. Whatever you think is best.”

He doesn’t tell anyone about them. He’s fine, they’ll make him better.

He comes home one from work one day to find Leon sitting at the kitchen table next to a little orange bottle. A little orange bottle that Tony knows he put back in the bottom of his sock drawer this morning. Leon’s moustache is twitching with anger. 

“What are these, Tony?”

“Pills-”

“I know they’re pills, Anthony!” Leon stands and spit flies from his mouth. “Why are they in your sock drawer?” He says composing himself a little.

“Why were you in my sock drawer?” Tony counters and pours himself a cup of coffee. He wonders how much more he can drink before he has a caffeine overdose. 

“I was looking for your marijuana stash.” Leon admits quietly.

“Good. You could stand to relax a bit.”

Leon huffs a breath like an angry horse, “I was looking to confiscate it not smoke it.”

“Well I don’t have any weed.” That’s a lie, it’s behind his bookcase. He’s been trying to smoke less now that he’s on the meds. “You don’t have to worry, they’re prescription.”

“I am worried. I’m worried because you didn’t tell us!”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Because we are your family and it is our job to look after you-”

“No it’s not.”

“What?”

“It’s not your job to look after me. You are my father’s colleague, ex-colleague actually-”

Leon head slaps him, “I am your family!” He grabs Tony’s face in his hands. It’s not gentle but it’s not aggressive either. Desperate is how Tony would describe it. “And this is the kind of thing that you tell your family about and you know that because otherwise you wouldn’t have hidden them.”

He searches Tony’s eyes to see if his message has hit home. Tony looks back into his and he can see the concern and the anger fighting for pride of place. It makes him nauseous.

“I hid them because I thought you would take them away.”

Leon searches harder, “The pills?”

“Tim and Abby.”

“Kid…” Leon says and Tony tries to remember if he’s ever heard his voice break like that before. This is all a bit confusing. Leon has always hated Tony, just like Jethro.

“Don’t tell them.”

“Tony-”

“They already don’t respect or listen to me. This would only make things worse.”

Leon sighs and rubs his head tiredly, “Fine. I’m telling Ducky and Tobias though.”

“Sure. Whatever you think is best.” 

… 

“ _ You have never asked what I said to him.” _

“I don’t care.”

_ “I do not believe that.” _

“That’s not my problem, Ziva.”

_ “I leave at the end of this semester. Perhaps, I could come and visit you.”  _

“Sure. Night, Ziva.”

_ “Goodnight, Tony.”  _ He waits for her to hang up,  _ “I miss you.”  _

She hangs up before he can reply. Good, he thinks. He doesn’t want to admit that he misses her too. 

…

Her visit is short and sweet. Well not that sweet. He keeps a running mantra of ‘Don’t get attached,’ in his head the whole time. They have the best sex of his life in his childhood bedroom and he drives her to the airport. She’s going straight back to Israel. Another person walks out of Tony’s life. 

… 

He comes back. 

Tony tries not to be bitter that he only came back for Em, because Tony loves Em so much it hurts and he’s so happy that she’s okay and she’s okay because of Jethro. He fails. He hates him more than he thought possible because he couldn’t even come back for them. 

He’s sitting at the kitchen table waiting for them. He’d known he was back, Tobias had warned him, only after he made the call but Tony guesses that’s better than nothing. Abby screams. 

“Dad!” She flings herself at him and the way Jethro scoops her up and smells her hair. The way his brow crinkles and his whole diaphragm relaxes tells Tony everything he needs to know. He remembers. He remembers and he’s missed them. Well, he’s missed Abby. 

Tim throws himself at Jethro next, crying as arms come around him and kisses are scattered in his hair. Jethro has missed Tim too. He’s crying. He looks up and meets Tony’s eyes. Tony sees it. Sees that what he’s looking at is not something he recognises. Tony knows he’s changed and it’s weird because Dad is the first person to visibly notice. Tony supposes for him it is an abrupt change. Dad clearly doesn’t like it because his brows crinkle in a way that spells disappointment, his lips twist like he’s eaten something sour. 

“Tony?” And Tony can hear the slight shock and the unhappiness clear as day. 

“Jethro.” 

Neither of them move. It’s like a Mexican standoff, except Tony has already lost because Tim and Abby are still curled in Jethro’s arms. Jethro holds his gaze for a second longer before turning to Abby as she starts chanting ‘You’re home! You’re home! You’re home!’ Tony wants to stay because he promised himself that he would never be the one to walk out. But Abby and Tim have forgotten his presence already. They’ve made their choice, Tony be damned. So he screws his promise to himself because he cannot be here a second longer. He turns and leaves. 

…

Repeat.


	17. VS

He realises half-way there that he’s heading for the Fornell’s and they have enough problems right now. He considers the Vance's but he still hasn’t figured out how to deal with Leon’s new found TLC approach so he stops. He gets a cab and whilst he’s sitting in the back seat he misses his bike. He texts Kate, to tell her the big news, to let her know that she should come home and revel in Jethro’s returned affections. The cab pulls up outside the apartment and Tony tips the guy like $20. He doesn’t remember getting from the cab to the door but he’s here and he’s knocking. 

“Tones?” Jimmy blinks at him sleepy without his glasses.

“Fuck. Did I wake you? I’ll go.”

Jimmy grabs his arm, “No, it’s fine. What’s wrong?”

“He’s back.” He kind of expects to start crying but all the emotions that have been thrumming in his blood have disappeared. 

Jimmy pulls him into a hug. Tony can’t make his arms rise to return it. Jimmy flutters around him, making him coffee, forcing him to shower and change, tucking him into bed with water and Advil ready for the morning. Tony doesn’t sleep. Just stares at the ceiling and listens to Jimmy’s snoring next to him. He keeps playing Jethro’s face when he saw him over and over and over again. He can’t tell if the softness and sad set of his eyes is Tony’s imagination or what actually happened. He doesn’t care if Jethro feels guilty, he should, but the thought that Tony’s best still wasn’t good enough made his heart hammer. “You’ll do” keeps swimming around in his brain. He stays at Jimmy’s the whole of the next day. He turns his phone off and smokes away the guilt in his stomach because he’s abandoned them and he’s just as bad as his father. He’s really high, higher than he’s been in ages when Jimmy’s phone rings. It’s Kate. She’s at the airport, she wants a lift. Jimmy hands him the phone. 

“I can’t right now, Katie.”

“I know you’re mad at him. So am I. But I want to see him and I need you to be there.”

“No, like, I’m super stoned and I should not be driving.”

“Ton-”

“Call Duck.” 

He thinks he falls asleep or maybe he just gets hyper-invested in _Tom & Jerry, _so he doesn’t even notice that Kate has shown up until he gets up to get more chips and finds her and Jimmy arguing in the kitchen. 

“Getting him high was really the best plan you could think of?”

“He knows where I keep my stash, Kate. I tried to stop him.”

“Well clearly not hard enough.”

“Katie?”

“Tony!” She spins and hugs him.

“It’s not Jimmy’s fault. You know he can’t resist me.” He wiggles his eyebrows and feels a sloppy smile slide onto his face. It makes Kate smile, it’s only a little bit pained and mostly in her eyes. 

“Tony.” She scolds, “You can’t run away and get high every time something happens.” 

He hates how sad she sounds. Hates that he’s done that.

“I didn’t run away.” He says and even he can hear the hurt and desperation in his voice. He did though.

“What would you call this then?”

He knows what this is. He knows this running away. That this is cowardice. He’s accepted the fact that he is a coward like his father. He just doesn’t need anyone to tell him that.

“Okay, enough, Katie.” 

She sighs and rubs her forehead tiredly and Tony gapes at her because she looks exactly like Mom did when she would fight with Da- Jethro about his drinking. He starts crying. Kate tries to reach out for him but he doesn’t want her to touch him. Not when she’s possessed by the ghost of Mom. Jimmy pushes past her and wraps his arms around Tony’s neck. Tony clings to his shoulders. 

“It’s okay, buddy.” Jimmy says, “You’re gonna be okay.” 

Tony thinks you can’t promise that, but Jimmy just keeps saying it and Tony thinks maybe Jimmy doesn’t understand him anymore. His breath hitches at the idea that they’ve lost that part of their bond. That they’ve both become so involved in their own lives and Tony has become so good at hiding that they’ve been thrown out of each other’s orbits. He digs his fingers into Jimmy’s back.

“I’m not gonna let him do this to you.” Jimmy states and Kate makes a pained noise behind them. 

Tony is suddenly exhausted. It feels like someone has turned his feet into taps and let them run wide open. His energy is flooding onto the floor, seeping between the floorboards and into the apartment below. He stops crying instantly.

“Damage’s already done.” He stands, shoulders hunched with exhaustion.

Jimmy tries to put his hand on Tony’s shoulder and he pulls away. He ignores the hurt look on Jimmy’s face. Just another thing that proves his point.

“I’ve already turned into him.” 

“No. Tones, you haven’t.” Jimmy sounds like he’s pleading. 

Tony wants to believe him but the ghost of Mom is still in Kate, still looking at him like a lost cause, like the war and the bottle have taken away the man she loved. Tony hadn’t always understood that look when he was younger. 

“I’m going to take a walk. Sober up.”

“Tony-” They both protest.

“I’m good.” 

He walks out. He just keeps walking. Thoughts flow through his head like one of those LED message boards at football games. It takes him a while to realise what the sentence running round his head over and over again is. _It’s like you’re obsessed with turning him into one of your soldiers, Jethro_ . He thinks about his name, where it came from. He’s been carrying a dead man’s name around his whole life, no wonder death has followed him everywhere he goes. His father had cursed him at birth. In front of him the shadow of man grows, the shadow is taller and fitter, straight postured and a hard helmet on top. Tony can’t make himself fit that shape, has never been able to fit that shape. It makes sense now, why he’s never been enough. _It’s like you’re obsessed with turning him into one of your soldiers, Jethro_ . He and Kate had worked it out once. They had counted nine months back from both their birthdays. Kate had been conceived on their wedding anniversary. Kate had asked Tony if there was anything special about early November 1989. He had said, date night I guess. He’s not sure why he lied. He thinks maybe it was because he was ashamed. A wedding anniversary was romantic but he thinks there was something sad and desperate, almost morbid, about his conception. A commemoration of making it out alive when so many didn’t. Tony wonders if Private DiNozzo’s death was still fresh in Jethro’s mind when he was having sex with Mom. He feels shame wash through him, like a tidal wave. It feels like he’s sullying her memory by even thinking about them in bed. There’s something not quite real about her in his memory. Something distinctly eight-years-old, his perception of her is from a time before he was fully able to actualise. She’s perfect and rose tinted. _It’s like you’re obsessed with turning him into one of your soldiers, Jethro_. He doesn’t remember the rest of that argument. That’s what he tells himself.

He keeps walking until the buzz fades from his head, like the tide pulling out. He buys a cup of coffee and ignores the man with the bags and the hollow cheeks that stares back at him from inside the napkin holder while he waits. He heads back for Jimmy’s. He considers calling Brad or Ziva but they’re worlds away now. He’s not sure he can ever return to that world. Not anymore. He can hear Kate and Jimmy arguing from outside the door. He lets himself in. They’re too wrapped up to even notice him. He lets their words wash into him. Some sting as they enter his skin, like addict, and shell, and lost. 

“All right love birds, break it up.” 

They turn to him aghast and guilty but he just laughs. It’s a good one, grown from fondness and real amusement even if it’s not real itself.

“Come on, Kate. We’ve got demons to face.”

Her nose scrunches, “Don’t call him that, Tony.”

“Right, sorry.” He opens the door and gestures with his hand, “After you.” 

She goes, eyebrows drawn in confusion, she’s finally reached a layer of Tony she can’t unpick. He follows her and isn’t surprised when he hears Jimmy locking the door behind him. Or when he feels Jimmy’s hand in the small of his back as they walk downstairs, gentle and grounding. They take the bus and it feels weirdly like an adventure. Like when Jimmy and Tony and Jeanne used to skip school. He wishes he had his mp3 player. They walk to the house in silence. Jimmy on his left, Kate on his right, close enough to bump shoulders every few steps. They both look to him when they notice the number of cars in the driveway, expecting him to groan or try to turn back around but he doesn’t react at all, just walks to the door. He gives them a small cheeky smile before he opens the front door. 

“Tony, thank God you’re here!” Tobias says. Tony feels himself falter just a bit, Tobias should be with Em, not dealing with Tony’s shit. 

They all file out from the kitchen, standing across the hallway in a line, Tony finds it distinctly amusing. A united front he thinks. Jethro stands at the front and he looks at Tony with relief in his eyes and Tony wants to punch him, head injury or no. Then he spots Kate over his shoulder and Tony watches his eyes light up, watches his breath catch in his throat. He feels Kate struggle with her own breath. 

“Kate.” Jethro breathes. 

“Dad,” and Tony doesn’t need to see her face to know there’s a watery smile. He doesn’t begrudge her. 

He pulls her forward and pushes her into Jethro’s arms. He feels Jimmy inch closer to him, shoulders touching. United front. 

Once Kate is safely tucked under Jethro’s arm Tobias comes forward. 

“Go pack your things, Kid.” 

“What?”

“Go get your things, you’re coming with me.”

This time it’s Jethro that says, “What?”

Tobias spins and Tony feels his spine prickle because Tobias’ posture is distinctly dangerous. 

“You think you can just waltz back in here and it’s all sunshine and roses? You’re out of your mind if you think I’m leaving these kids in your care.”

Dad steps forward, his lips turned up in a snarl, “I just saved your kid.”

“And now I’m saving yours. All of you pack your things.”

“No!” Abby cries and wraps herself around Jethro’s waist, fingers looping through his belt loops like that’s going to make all the difference. 

“I’m their father-”

“You know, we’ve let you get away with a lot of shit over the years, Jethro, but I’m drawing the line here.” Tobias cuts him off. 

Leon comes to stand behind Jethro’s shoulder and Tony isn’t surprised by him choosing that side. Only he leans forward, cool as a cucumber, and speaks into Jethro’s ear, “We should have taken them away from you the first time you left them alone.” His tone gets a bit nastier, “You know, when he was eight.” 

Kate extracts herself from the situation and goes to stand against the wall. No man’s land. 

“Shut up! You can’t do that!” Tim squeals. 

Ducky places a placating hand on his shoulder, “We’re only doing what’s best for you, Timothy.”

Tim yanks himself free and heads for the shelter of Jethro, “No you’re not!” He turns to Tony, “This is all your fault.”

“I’m not making anyone do anything.”

Tim deflates. “I’m not leaving Dad.”

“Me either!” Abby shouts. 

“You heard them.” Jethro says, victory turning the corners of his lip upwards.

“Fine.” Tobias huffs. He doesn’t break eye contact with Jethro, “Tony, Kate, get your things.”

Kate looks like the floor has just opened up beneath her. Tony steps forward and puts his hand on Tobias’ shoulder.

“If they’re staying I’m staying.”

“Like hell you are.”

“Toby-” Tony starts.

Leon steps around Jethro, “Tony,” and Tony can tell he’s not going to like what’s coming. He leans down so only Tony and Tobias can hear and whispers, “You can stay, if you tell him.” 

His body stiffens without his permission. Tobias and Leon clear out of his space and he looks at Jethro. He tries to form the words, but they roll over and under his tongue. It feels like a weakness. He sees a shadow stretch before him on the ground. It’s holding a rifle, wearing a hard hat and it’s impossibly tall and he can’t fit it. He looks at Abby and Tim clinging to Jethro. He looks at Kate standing to the side, lost and torn. He looks at Ducky, his face set in deep apprehension. At Leon and Tobias who are trying their hardest not to let smugness overtake concern. Finally, he looks at Jethro who is shooting angry glances between Tony and his uncles. He’s always hated not being in the know, nothing gets under his skin like a secret. Tony acknowledges the fear in Jethro’s eyes and he understands that it’s about him, about losing him but he can’t make that knowledge connect with anything inside of himself. He’s between a rock and a hard place. He looks at the shadow once more then back at Jethro. He sees the second he’s made his decision reflected in the grief in Jethro’s eyes. He walks past them to the stairs. He hears them calling his name, one laced with sadness, two with betrayal, one with confusion. He comes down with his duffle clenched in his hand. He stops just before he’ll become visible, they’re arguing again.

“What did you say to him? What did you say to my son?” Jethro bellows.

“You walked away, you don’t get to call him that.” Tobias says.

Tony wants them all to stop tearing themselves apart over him. Can’t they see he’s not worth it?

“I wasn’t talking to you! What did you say to him, Leon?”

“None of your concern.”

“He’s my-” Leon cuts him off before he says it again.

“You’re not capable of giving him the care he needs.” Leon shouts back, finally losing his cool.

“What does that mean?” Jethro asks and he doesn’t sound so angry anymore. 

“It means Tony is i-”

“I’m ready, let’s go.” He calls, descending the rest of the stairs. 

Everyone freezes. Kate is still pressed against the wall. She has tears in her eyes. 

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, Kate, it’s okay.”

She shakes her head, “He abandoned us.” Her eyes betray her. 

“It’s okay to forgive him.” He says and he smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear because he knows that she already has.

“I’ll come with you.” She repeats with even less conviction than before.

“Don’t make this about me. This is about what you need and what you want. If you want to stay I’m okay with that. I promise, Katie.” 

She hugs him and whispers 'thank you' in his ear. Abby hugs him too, she’s confused and she begs him to stay and she thumps him on the chest when he says no. Tim spits a 'fuck you' at him which earns him a head slap from Jethro. Tony looks at Jethro and he can see him trying to connect dots that he doesn’t fully remember. He looks hauntingly like how he did when Aunt Jenny hold them Mom and Kelly had died. _It’s like you’re obsessed with turning him into one of your soldiers, Jethro_.

“Make sure Tim sticks to his meal plan, ask Duck if you have any questions. There’s a food delivery every other Thursday, login details are on the fridge if you want to change an order. Abby has a permission slip for science camp that needs signing, it’s on the desk in my room.” 

There’s a long pause and Tony realises they’ve ended up in lines again. Jimmy, Tobias, Leon and Tony in front of the door and the others in front of the kitchen, Ducky standing slightly behind the rest. Tony supposes it’s symbolic. United front.

“I’m sorry.” He says and his voice is thick and he’s looking at Tim and Abby. Jimmy squeezes his wrist in what feels like a reprimand. 

Tobias puts his hand on the nape of Tony’s neck, the way Jethro used to. He lets himself be turned away from his family and it feels like someone’s popped him inside out. Like he’s going against his very nature. He turns his head over his shoulder just before the door is closed. 

“Oh, when Abby’s looking for her other shoe it’s down the side of the dryer!” 

…

The Fornell’s care is oppressive. He is forced to hand over his pills and Tobias dolls them out to him each morning with breakfast. He has a curfew of midnight, which is ridiculous because he’s almost twenty. They let him keep his job at the docks and they don’t comment when he comes home stinking of beer after a day’s work. He gets away with eating remarkably little, they’re too focused on Emily’s eating habits. Tony wishes he could stay with the Vances because staying with the Fornells when Em is trying to recover from a kidnapping makes the feeling of ‘ _burden_ ’ increase ten-fold. Until one day, when they’re curled up on the couch watching cartoons together Em says.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a bit longer.

“I was always so jealous that you weren’t my actual big brother.” 

He feels a bit choked up. He knows he should treat this as a serious moment but he just doesn’t have the internal capacity right now.

“Aw. You love me.” He says teasingly, poking her in the side.

She grins then sighs in fake aloofness, “No I’m just glad that they’ve got someone else to fuss over. Dad’s in full momma bear mode and trust me, you do not want one hundred percent of his attention when he’s like this. It’s un _bear_ able.” 

“Oh, Em. That was terrible.” He shakes his head. 

“Te _bear_ ble.” 

He groans and pretends to smother himself with a pillow. 

Maybe he can deal with the oppressive care, even if it’s only for Em. 

…

Kate comes by before she goes back to college for the rest of the semester. She’s missed a lot this year and is pretty worried about falling behind, not that she’d tell anyone that. 

“I’m so sorry, Tony.”

“It’s really okay, Kate. I don’t want you to feel guilty about this.”

“But I do. I want to be as strong as you. I want to not forgive him.”

That cuts something deep in Tony’s chest. 

“KitKat.” He loops an arm around her, “That’s such bullshit. Me not forgiving him is not about me being strong.”

“But-”

“We’ve always had a rocky relationship. Even before the accident it had gone from rocky to straight up bad. Our _relationship_ wasn’t strong enough to handle this. I’d never wish that on you. Yours was and I’m so thankful for that.” 

She still looks a bit cross. She always does when she knows Tony’s right. 

“What did Leon say to you?”

Tony shifts uncomfortably, “He, uh, gave me an ultimatum.”

She raises her eyebrows for more information. 

“Kate,” He says. 

“Right. There’s plenty of shit you don’t tell me.”

“Yeah." He sighs. "Someday.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“I know.”

…

“Yes, I’m his Uncle.”

Tony has his feet propped up on Tobias’ desk, playing a game on his phone. “That’s a lie.”

Tobias throws a paperclip at him and holds a finger to his lips aggressively. 

“I want to go over re-enrolling Tony for next year.”

Tobias listens to Coach for a second. He exhales an unamused laugh.

“Yes, I know Tony normally handles these things himself, but now I’m his legal guardian-”

“Lie.” Another paperclip.

“I want to make sure that I’m in the loop from now on.”


	18. Afloat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Depression, suicidal thoughts/ideation & attempt

He goes back to college and floats his way through the year. He gets all A’s but he couldn’t tell you a single paper he wrote. They won all their games bar one, but he couldn’t tell you a single play. He spends Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Pitt’s but the memories combine and smudge into one slightly blurry snapshot. He spends spring break with Mikey who miraculously persuades the boys from the team to go to Palm Springs instead of Mexico. Sometimes Tony would come back to himself, he’d be walking across the quad, or in the middle of a lecture, on the phone to Kate, and he’d feel like his body had a soul in it again. It would rarely last as long as half an hour and he wouldn’t know how long it had been since the last time. Sometimes it was nice, like he was finally breathing after a long time holding his breath. Sometimes it felt like his life was flashing before his eyes, a moment of clarity before certain death. He both longed for and dreaded the next waking moment whilst experiencing one but found that he could not fully remember or describe the sensation when he wasn’t living it. Tony didn’t mind the fog so much. It almost made life easier, not having to think at all. Not having to be at all. Occasionally he would realise how pointless it was, how tiring it was to live without even living but then he would remind himself that he wasn’t really doing it for himself. 

…

He’s stopped for gas, staring at a massive billboard for Kodak when he makes the decision. He figures that he hasn’t felt much in a while so it probably won’t even hurt. He makes the call standing at the pump. 

_ “Fornell.” _

“Hey, it’s me.”

_ “I know, I have caller ID.” _

“Then why’d you answer the phone like that?”

_ “Habit. What’s up, kid?” _

“I’m gonna go back.”

_ “What, did you forget something? Can’t someone mail it to you?” _

“No, I’m going to spend the summer at Jethro’s.” It’s not really home anymore. Tony doesn't think he really has a home at this point. 

_ “No.” _

“Toby, please.”

_ “You’re not doing this just to torture yourself are you?” _

“No.”

_ “Not torturing me?” _

“No.”

_ “I don’t like it. But look, kid, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” _

Tony’s phone buzzes twice with calls from Leon whilst he’s driving. 

He pulls into the house and is surprised to find that there’s not an ounce of adrenaline in his blood. He thinks maybe he’s finally dealt with everything. If his fight or flight system no longer kicks into action at the sight of this house he figures he’s fine now. He grabs his main bag of clothes and leaves the rest in the car. No one is immediately obvious when he walks in, though the front door isn’t locked so someone is probably home. He grabs a PopTart from the kitchen and eats it raw. It’s the first thing he’s eaten in probably three days and it makes him feel queasy. His room hasn’t changed at all since the last time he was here. Not even the dirty laundry in his basket has moved. He opens a window because it’s stale and hot then dumps his bag on the floor and lays on top of his covers. He lays there until the breeze from outside the window has made the room cold, he crawls to the end of his bed and pulls his Ohio State sweatshirt out of his bag. He curls back up on his bed and continues his staring, now marginally warmer. He watches the sunlight drag itself out of the room as evening descends. He’s not aware of much else but he hears the commotion down stairs, it doesn’t seem important enough to move his eyes from the light fixture above him so he just listens.

The front door bangs open. 

“Where is he?” Leon says. 

“Who?” Tim sounds startled. 

“Tony,” Jethro says.

“Uh, college?” 

“His college is over.” Leon sounds angry, Tony guesses it’s aimed at him. 

“We’ve been home all day, I’m pretty sure we’d notice if Tony was here.” Abby says. Tony had forgotten how un-soundproof this house was. 

“His car’s in the driveway.” Jethro deadpans and Tony can hear two sets of feet start to head up the stairs. 

He rolls over until he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. His door bursts open without knocking and Leon and Jethro both try to come through at the same time only to bounce off each other. It’s like a comedy sketch and Tony smiles. 

“Fellas.” He greets.

“Tony, I thought we agreed you were going to spend the summer with us.” Leon says and his nostrils are flared which is, you know, not ideal because that means he’s really, really angry.

“Don’t you think this has all gone on for long enough now?” Tony asks and seemingly surprises them both. 

“What?” Leon asks. 

“I say we just,” he gestures his hands forwards, like heading down a train track, “move on. Forgive and forget.” 

“Are you having some kind of nervous breakdown?”

Probably. Tony snorts, “Look, Leon, I’m just tired of my life being so full of conflict. If you trust me enough to look after myself alone at college for a year then you have to trust me to look after myself here too.”

Leon opens his mouth to protest. 

“Can we just stop tearing ourselves apart for one summer?”

Leon opens his mouth once more and Tony already knows what he’s going to say.

“Jethro, I’ve been taking antidepressants since January last year.” He turns back to Leon barely registering Jethro’s shocked look, “See, now he knows so I can stay here.”

Tony wonders if literal steam is about to start coming out of Leon’s ears, but Abby and Tim decide to give up eavesdropping and join the conversation properly. The pop into the doorway like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. 

“What?” Tim says. 

“How come you didn’t tell us?” Abby says. 

“We had bigger things to worry about at the time.” Tony doesn’t want them to feel guilty. 

“I think we need to sit down and discuss this properly.” Leon says

“Sit down and discuss what properly?” Kate asks, coming up the stairs. “Oh!” She says as she draws level with Tony’s door. 

He smiles at her and she smiles back and then rushes to hug him. Abby follows in after. Tim lingers at the door looking uncertain and Tony motions him over. While they’re all huddled up on the bed Tony and Jethro send Leon identical ‘ _ see!’  _ looks. When the hug is over Leon ushers everyone out of the room and stands in front of Tony. They both pretend that they can’t see the shadows under the door.

“Tony-”

“What, Leon? I told him about my happy pills and now I get to stay here.”

“Family or not, this is not a safe environment for you.”

“If it’s safe enough for Tim, it’s safe enough for me.” He stands and puts his best placating voice on, “I can look after myself, besides it’s only one summer and you’ll be around if it all goes to shit.”

“Damn right I will,” Leon mutters angrily, already knowing he’s lost this battle. 

…

“So, how’s college?”

“Good. I’m top of my class and we had a great season.”

Tony expects Tim to make some remark about ‘it’s not hard to be top of the class when you’re doing Phys Ed at Ohio State.’ but no such remark comes, just awkward silence. 

After an impossibly long pause Jethro says, “That’s good.” He takes a gulp of his beer and says in a stifled voice, “I’m proud of you.”

Tony chokes on his mouthful and Kate swiftly clears her throat before starting a story about one of her lecturers. Tony doesn’t miss the way Jethro’s face seems to crumple a bit, like he regrets saying it. Tony swallows his feelings. 

…

He puts up a good front for three weeks but he gets tired after that. It’s enough to get his uncles off his back about being there. He’d told everyone he got his old job at the docks again so he had an easy excuse for not being in the house when he needed it. Turns out he needed it more than he thought he would. Or hoped he would. He usually just goes walking. He’s considered buying a bike but he’s yet to get around to it. He is distantly aware that he’s been putting it off on purpose, just in case it no longer offers the same euphoric freedom as it used to. He doesn’t want to replace the gold-tinted memories of those late night bike rides with anything. So, he walks.

He’s not sure what time it is, he can’t roll over to look at his alarm clock. He’s still in his jeans from yesterday. He’d stood up from the dinner table and he swears he felt his soul leave his body. He’d gone straight to bed and hasn’t moved since. He’s not sure if he’s slept or if he’s just been staring at the stain on his carpet since he’d flopped down. He can hear voices downstairs and the light in his room is bright since he hadn’t closed his blinds. He figures it’s mid-morning. He lifts his eyes to a knot in the wood of his desk. He counts his breaths, holding each one in for as long as he can before he releases it. He’s hot and he can feel a line of sweat sliding down his back but the idea of moving his arms to rearrange his duvet seems herculean. He keeps his eyes on the knot and lets time move around him, like a rock blocking the path of a stream. At some point, when his room is nearly dark again, a shiver runs up his spine. It makes his shoulders and arms jerk and afterwards he feels the tiredness inside of him like heavy pieces of grit inside his blood. It makes his eyes sting and his mattress sink with the increased weight of him. His mouth is dry and hot. He has to count his breaths again. Somewhere, in the background of his mind, the landline rings and is answered. He couldn’t tell you how much time passes but then his phone is ringing on his bedside table behind him. It seems to vibrate more aggressively than usual, the sound of it skidding across the wood is somehow louder than the ringing itself. He’s so focussed on the knot and the sound of the ringing that he doesn’t notice the door open. The phone stops ringing. 

“Tony?”

He rolls his eyes toward the door and sees Tim standing there, cell phone in hand, still visibly on Tony’s contact ID. Tony blinks at him in response and hopes that’s enough. 

It must not be because Tim takes a faltering step forward and says his name again. Tony just follows him with his eyes. 

“I thought you were at work… have you been here all day?”

Tony flicks his tongue inside his mouth experimentally but decides that anything more is beyond his capabilities. 

“Tony?” Tim comes to the edge of the bed and kneels, Tony tacks him. “Come on man, you’re really freaking me out.” 

He’s scaring Tim. He thinks the words but they don’t really mean anything. He watches as Tim exits Tony’s contact ID and starts scrolling up. He gets to D and then suddenly the words make sense. The meaning seeps into his brain and he realizes he is scaring Tim. Energy bubbles deep in his core, it’s almost painful, but it’s enough and he sits up, pressing the cancel button just as Tim is about to click call. Tim looks at him with his big puppy dog eyes and the fear is so burningly obvious it makes Tony feel sick. 

“I’m fine.” His voice cracks with how dry his throat and mouth are. Tim does not look at all convinced. 

“Dude, you were like catatonic.”

“Like you care!” The anger licks up his throat like a hot whip and then evaporates almost as quickly. He’s scaring Tim. “Sorry.” 

“Tony…” Tim says and his voice is drowning in guilt. 

“Sorry, Timmy, sorry.” He reaches up with a numb arm and cups the side of Tim’s face. It’s an odd moment, it does not feel natural like it once would have. It feels like it’s a scene from years ago before they were both basically men. 

Tim is looking at him again and the fear has been traded in for concern. Tony licks his dry lips. 

“Sorry, Tim. I forgot to take my meds this morning.” 

It’s not technically a lie, he hadn’t taken his meds this morning but this has nothing to do with that. Tony thinks Tim is probably smart enough to know that it doesn’t work like that, he’s into science and stuff so he probably knows. Only Tony sees relief flood Tim’s face for a second before he gets up and grabs Tony’s pill bottle from the desk. He kneels in front of Tony again for a moment and when Tony makes no move to take them, Tim takes his hand and turns it palm up before checking the dosage on the bottle and tipping one out. Tony stares at the pill in his palm before looking back up at Tim. He nods and the moment feels weirdly intimate. It feels almost like a line has been crossed. Like there’s something intrinsically wrong about Tim being the one to look after  _ him. _ The sensation only increases when Tim nudges Tony’s arm towards his mouth. Tony swallows the pill and looks down at his hands. He doesn’t want to look at Tim right now. Not when it makes the word failure circle around his brain. He feels Tim come to sit next to him on the bed. 

“Abby and Kate called, uh, they’re at the mall, they thought we could have dinner at Alonzo’s.” He pauses and Tony can feel him looking at him. “Want me to, uh, to text and tell them to pick up take out?”

Tony nods and listens to the sounds of Tim clicking away. It’s oddly soothing despite its speed.

“You, uh, think you could make it down stairs?” 

Tony nods but the energy he had felt earlier is waning and he feels heavy again. Tim stands and looks expectantly at Tony. Tony looks back up at him and there it is again:  _ failure.  _ Tim seems unaware of it though and only loops an arm around Tony and pulls him up. He seems to sense that any further help would not be appreciated and backs off once Tony starts walking. Since when had Tim been able to read a room? He feels a stab of resentment for his uncles for making him miss a year of Tim’s life but Tony is too empty to feel it properly. Tim ushers him to the kitchen table. He sets a glass of orange juice in front of him. 

“You should take small sips,” He twitches nervously when Tony doesn’t start drinking, “You know, so you don’t make yourself sick. You’re probably dehydrated, right? Since you’ve just been, uh, lying in your roo-”

“You’d know, McMealskipper.” Tony says cutting him off and he thinks it might be the only time that Tim has ever sounded relieved to be called ‘Mc’ anything. 

Tony sips slowly and is not surprised to feel no difference at all but it seems to appease Tim so he doesn’t mind much. Kate and Abby come home with food from Alonzo’s. It’s Tony’s favourite place but he has the urge to spit each mouthful out as he takes it. He honestly has no idea why; the texture of having something in his mouth is just suddenly disgusting to him. Abby and Kate are giggly and cheerful after their day but their mood sobers at Tony’s odd behavior and Tim’s hovering. He’s aware of the guilt it makes him feel but it doesn’t fully click. He excuses himself halfway through the meal and goes back to bed. 

…

It takes three days for him to ‘get back on his feet’ and Ducky comes to stay after it freaks Jethro out. He’s halfway through brushing his teeth when he has one of his moments of clarity. It’s like something clicks and he’s human again. It doesn’t last long. Just long enough for him to realize that the hollow cheeked and sallow skinned man in the reflection doesn't line up with how he pictures himself at all and then it’s gone. After it recedes he’s out of his funk and fully able to continue to pretend to be a functioning member of society. He goes out and gets donuts from Tim’s favourite place. Tim regards him cautiously when he returns. 

“You’re not on drugs are you?” he says half jokingly.

“Not any fun ones.” Tony replies and slides the donuts across the table. Tim raises his eyebrows, “Just a good day, Timmy.” 

Tim smiles and takes a donut out the box. 

“I’m sorry for freaking you out the other day.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Tim says quickly, he puts his half eaten donut down and wipes his hands, face suddenly serious. “I’m sorry.”

Tony’s eyebrows draw together in confusion, “For what?”

Tim gapes, then gulps, “For everything! For what a dick I was last year. For making you worry about me when we should have been worrying about you. For not trying to see your side of things with Dad. For not ever saying thank you.” His voice gets very quiet, “For not realising you were home all day…” 

He licks his lips nervously and it makes him look like Tim again. 

“You have nothing to apologise for, Tim. Not as far as I’m concerned.”

“Well, I recently discovered you’re pretty fucked in the head, so I feel confident in telling you you’re wrong.” 

Tony laughs and he wonders if this new Tim can tell that it’s fake. 

“I’d do it all again, ya know?”

“Yeah, I think that’s part of the problem.” He walks around the table, closing the distance between himself and Tony, “You’ve always been there for me, but I haven’t been there for you. We’re brothers, that’s meant to be a two way street. I’m sorry it took me so long to work that out.”

Tony feels a bang of distant sadness at the fact that this is not a moment he’s fully in, that it’s not a moment he’ll probably even remember in the near future, because he knows it’s an important one. He wants, for the first time in a long while, to live again; even if it’s only so he can give Tim this moment in a way he deserves. He can’t though and the want slips into the mist around him. He pulls Tim into a hug and they tuck their heads into each others’ necks. Tim is warm and solid and more real than Tony expects him to be. 

…

“Hey, Abs,” he says tugging one of her pigtails as she lays out the new clothes she bought, “Remember when you cried about me going to Ohio and now you’re moving halfway across the country.”

“God, Tony! Don’t remind me.” She swats him, “I just really liked the campus and they have one of the best science programs at Louisiana.” She sits next to him on the floor, “I wish it wasn’t so far away.”

“Me too.” 

She leans her head on his shoulder and he rests his on top of hers. 

“It was really weird not having you around.” He hums in response. “Like, you’re always there. You’ve always been there and then you weren’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

They’re silent for a really long time. 

“I wasn’t the only one who missed you,” She takes his hand in hers, “He’d sit in your room when he thought we were asleep and sometimes I heard him crying.”

Tony doesn’t say anything. 

“He’s still your dad.”

“He’s just forgotten the bad bits.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten the good bits.” 

“Maybe.”

He kisses her cheek and goes back to his room. 

…

He’s on one of his walks when he comes across it. He assumed that it would have been knocked down when the mall closed but the parking garage is still there. It’s nearly empty and Tony walks up the spiralling floors in the centre of the ramps. It’s silent other than the occasional echo of a pigeon and his footsteps. He’s on the seventh floor when he stops. He goes to the inner wall and stares down to the circle of ground in the centre of the garage. The wall goes up to just below his waist and he was expecting it to be higher. He sits on the wall and lets his legs dangle over, swinging against the cement. It’s the calmest he’s ever felt. He lets go of his left hand just as his phone rings. He startles and nearly plummets but manages to catch himself in time. The calm feeling doesn’t leave him though. He takes the phone out of his pocket and answers without checking caller ID. He thinks maybe it’s the universe trying to remind him that you’re supposed to say goodbye first. You’re supposed to leave a note of some kind. 

_ “Hey, Tony. Dad wanted to know if you’re going to be home for dinner?”  _ Tim’s tinny voice says into his ear. 

Tony looks down, “No, Tim. I’m not gonna be home tonight.”

_ “Oh. Are you going over to Jimmy’s?” _

“Yeah, sure. You know I love you, Tim? You know I love all of you?”

_ “Yeah, Tones, I do- Are you okay? You sound weird.” _

“Yeah, Timmy. It’s a good day.”

_ “Really? What are you doing?” _

And suddenly the calm leaves him. He imagines Tim answering the door to two police officers, he imagines him breaking in a way that means that he’d never be put together again. Humpty dumpty. Then he imagines that it’s Kate that answers the door. Then Abby. Then Jimmy. Tobias. Ducky. Leon. Emily. Diane. Jackie. Tony is not naive enough to think that nobody cares, he’s also not naive enough to think that being loved is going to make his life any better. 

“ _ -ony _ ?” Tim’s voice comes from next to his ear and it’s clear by his tone that Tony has missed the first few calls.

“Yeah?” The calm is gone and the guilt has set its fangs into him. 

_ “What are you doing?” _

“Well, Tim, I was just about to throw myself off the seventh story of a parking garage.” 

_ “That’s not funny.” _

“I wasn’t joking.”

He hears Tim shouting for Jethro on the other end of the line.  _ “Tony, where are you?” _

“The old mall off North Capitol.” 

_ “Hang on, Tony, I’m coming.” _

“Okay.”

_ “Stay on the phone with me.”  _

“Okay.”

“ _ Go faster, Dad!” _

He hears the car enter the garage. Hears the speed with which Jethro drives it round the loops. It echos up around him. He’s shaking now. He hears the car door slam behind him but he can’t tear his eyes away from the ground below. 

“Tony?” Tim says tentatively from behind him. 

“Hey, dude.”

“Come down, Tony.”

“I can’t.” He feels a nervous laugh escape him. “I’m shakin’ too much. I don’t wanna die like this.” 

He feels Tim’s arms wrap around him and tug him back until they’re both a heap on the ground. He shuffles to sit against the wall, Tim doing the same next to him. He puts a shaking hand on Tim’s leg. 

“I love you, Tim.” 

Tim throws his arms around Tony and they become tangled once more. 

Tony looks up to find Jethro collapsed against the car, driver’s door still open and tears streaming down his face. The second Tony makes eye contact he scrambles over to his boys. He wraps his arms around Tony and buries his head into Tony’s hair. Tony feels a sob building in his gut. He lets himself curl into Jethro, only he smells like _Dad_. Jethro leans back gripping Tony’s face in his hands. 

“Don’t ever do that to me, Tones. I wouldn’t survive losing you.” 

Tony breaks. It’s weird though because it’s just like going through the motions. He isn’t even sure he feels sad but he’s weeping like a baby in his father’s arms. 

“Sorry.” He sputters between breaths.

Jethro draws him back in again, resting a hand on the nape of his neck and stroking gently. 

…

They bundle him into the back of the car and take him to the hospital even though Tim and Tony both beg to just go home. 

This is not how Tony imagined his summer would go. 


	19. Restructure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I've been finding it hard to find the inspiration with everything going on in the world.

“Hello, Anthony.” He greets and takes Tony’s hand across the table. Tony’s not surprised that Ducky is the first one to visit after the seventy-two hour hold ends.

“Hey, Duck.”

“How are you feeling, my boy?”

“Medicated.”

“Well, yes, I’d imagine so.” They share a quiet smile. “You gave us all quite a fright, Tony.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to.” 

Ducky gives his hand a squeeze, “I want you to be honest with me, Anthony, was this at all triggered by staying with Jethro?” 

“No. I don’t think so. I’ve been… bad for a while.” 

Ducky nods and wipes his brow, “I don’t know whether to be relieved or not. I’m afraid we have let you down once again.”

“No. Ducky, no. You guys are what’s kept me going. What keeps me going.” Ducky looks like he’s trying his best not to cry. Tony smiles and it feels kinda natural on his face, “No man’s an island, right, Duck?”

Ducky chuckles in surprise and his eyes shimmer and Tony can’t quite tell if it’s more tears or some distant happiness, “Have you actually read the poem?” 

“Yeah, when I was in high school.”

“We never cease to underestimate you, do we?” 

“Sometimes you overestimate me.”

Ducky hums sadly and his thinking face slips into place. Tony doesn’t think he wants to know what Ducky is thinking about. Eventually he breaks the silence. 

“You’re somehow always at your best when you are at your worst. It has taken me an incredibly long time to figure that out and for that I am sorry.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t like all the apologies and he’s guessing that Ducky is only the start. He changes the subject.

“How’s Tim holdin’ up?”

“He was very shaken but I think he is alright. He is very eager to see you.”

“And the others?”

“Abigail did not take it quite so well, but I suppose that is to be expected.” He huffs a humorless laugh, “Caitlin is, as I myself am, struggling to understand how we missed this.”

“I didn’t want you to see it, that’s how you missed it.” 

Ducky fixes him with a look that makes Tony feel very, very small. “And how much else have me missed?”

Tony thinks about the box under the bed; his real SAT score, Jenny’s letter, the bottles, the weed, the pictures of Mom and Kelly. He thinks about ODing at college not even six months ago and not telling anyone. He thinks about antidepressants and parenting teenagers before he’d even hit twenty. He thinks about gunshots and sisters’ blood. He thinks about dead, backstabbing godmothers. He thinks about Kelly’s closet and midnight bike rides and a girlfriend whose life he turned upside down by spying on her and car accidents and hospitals and how achingly familiar he is with all of it. He thinks about the sensation of his lungs being too full to breathe. He feels it all pressing in on him and looks away from Ducky. He looks at his hands resting on the table and he sees, just above his wrist, a small silver scar from a knife. He thumbs for a second and thinks that maybe, somehow, if he hadn’t hidden that first injury none of the rest would have happened, or at the very least he wouldn’t have felt the need to hide them too. 

Ducky is watching him carefully and Tony wonders for a second if he has said it all out loud. Ducky motions towards the scar, “Something you wish to tell me about, my boy?”

“You know it takes sixty-six days to form a habit?”

“I have heard that, yes, and only twenty-one to break one. How does that relate to the scar?”

“That night when you guys found out Jethro had been leaving us alone, when I was a kid, I had sliced my wrist while cooking dinner.” Ducky looks heartbroken and Tony doesn’t think that he’ll be able to keep talking if he has to look at Ducky so he fixes his eyes on the wall just behind him. “It’s actually what rattled me enough to call Jenny.”

“Tony…”

“I never told you because I heard Uncle Tobias say he wanted to take us away. I thought if you knew I’d hurt myself it would…” He covers the scar fully with the palm of his hand. “Guess it wouldn’t have been so bad if you had, huh?”

Ducky doesn’t share his rueful smile.

“Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that I formed a habit. So, it’s not like I didn’t think you would have been there for me, because I know you would have… I just formed a habit of keeping things to myself.”

Ducky shakes his head and removes his glasses to wipe at his eyes. He takes Tony’s hand from on top of his wrist and holds it tightly. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m telling you don’t need to apologise.”

“And I am telling you that I am sorry.” 

Tony nods, unsure what to say once more. 

  
  


…

“Are you sure about this?” Leon asks from the front seat. 

“For the a-hundredth time, yes.”

“I’m just saying that Kayla and Jared have been asking when you’ll be coming. They’d love to have you.”

“Stop guilt-tripping him.” Tobias scolds.

“I’m not guilt-tripping him,” Leon snaps, “I am trying to dissuade him from making a terrible decision.”

“Thanks, Leon, appreciate it.” Tony pipes up from the backseat. He has a headache and the bickering isn’t really helping. He rests his head against the glass, the vibration of the glass stops it from actually being soothing but at least it’s cool. 

“The last time we left you in his care you tried to kill yourself so excuse me for not being enthusiastic about the idea.”

“When’d you stop hating me?”

“What?” They both ask, and they’re so like a cartoon married couple it’s comical. 

“Like, when I was a kid you always hated me.” 

In the mirror, Tony catches the shit-eating grin Tobias sends Leon.

“I never hated you. I just thought that you were an undisciplined troublemaker, which you were, but I have always loved you. We’re family. Remember?” He asks pointedly. 

“Right.” Tony says and rolls his forehead against the glass, seeking more of the cool.

“Stop deflecting.” Toby says, “I agree with Leon, I don’t think this is a good idea. Please at least consider staying with one of us?”

“You didn’t leave me in his care, you left me in my care.”

“I’m not sure which was more stupid of us,” grumbles Tobias. 

“He didn’t know how bad it was, and neither did you-” he adds when he sees Leon open his mouth to argue. “I’m fairly sure he’s aware of the risks now.”

Tobias pulls the car up outside of the house. 

“Tony, just because he’s better doesn’t mean that you have to forgive him. You are supposed to be recovering and getting better yourself and I honestly don’t think that you can do that if you’re also trying to repair your relationship with him.” Tobias says turning in his seat. 

Tony sighs tiredly, “I don’t forgive him. I’m not focusing on repairing my relationship with him, I am focusing on myself. And I want to sleep in my own bed and be with my siblings before we go back to college and I’m not expecting some miraculous change in his behaviour. I am well aware of who he is, so don’t worry my expectations aren’t raised but I do want to be able to call this place home again. So… I don’t know, I just, I want to be here.”

Tobias rubs his eyes in defeat, “Okay. Let's go then.”

…

It’s not so bad. The worst part is adjusting to the new dosage the docs gave him. It makes his body feel off kilter for the first week. He pretends that he doesn’t know that Jethro comes and stands in his doorway for a few minutes each night. He tries not to let the smothering get under his skin; tries not to slam the bathroom door every time he remembers the lock has been removed; tries not to recoil when Abby wraps herself around him for what seems like hours on end, or when she forces him to watch films with her; 5he knows she’s doing it because he loves them but his attention span can’t take it; tries not to snap when ever Kate apologises or Tim stares for just a bit too long. Ducky has effectively moved in, but he’s better at giving Tony space than the others. 

He spends more time asleep than he used to, but tonight it’s just not coming to him. He goes down to the kitchen to make himself a cocoa and almost jumps out of his skin when he sees Jethro sitting, head bowed, at the kitchen table.

“Jesus!”

Jethro chuckles and apologises. He stands and Tony recalls all the fights that have started in this kitchen with Jethro standing from the table. 

“Can’t sleep?”

“Uh, no.” He takes a step further into the room, “I was gonna make some cocoa.”

“Sit, I’ll do it.”

Tony shuffles to the table as Jethro starts getting mugs down. They remain silent until Jethro places the mug in front of Tony and sits opposite with his own. 

“Won’t be as good as Jenny’s I’m afraid.” Tony flinches a little at her name. He’s been thinking about her a lot recently, what with everyone talking about forgiveness. “You ever gonna tell me what happened between you two?”

“What?” 

Jethro stares at him over the top of his mug, “Just... did she do something to you?”

Tony flounders for a second.

“Because, if she did, you don’t need to protect her anymore, she’s dead.”

“What do you mean?”

“You two suddenly stop talking, you avoided her at all costs; Tim says she  _ blackmailed  _ you into therapy; you were worryingly unaffected by her death; you flinch when you hear her name. I know the signs, I see it all the time at work.”

“No! Christ, no! She wasn’t _abusing_ me!”

A weight seemed to lift from Jethro’s shoulders, “Okay. I needed to make sure.”

“Why- how long have you thought  _ that _ ?” 

“I had concerns at the time, but I thought maybe it was about Jen and I sleeping together so I didn’t know how to bring it up. When things started coming back, they didn’t always come back in order. So I was remembering you two when you were fourteen and when you were sixteen at the same time. It made it so obvious that something changed.” 

“No. It wasn’t like that.”

“Good. Statement still stands though.”

“Huh?”

“If you’re trying to protect her, or me, that’s not your responsibility.” 

Tony fiddles with his mug for a minute. “Did you love her?”

“Yes. I wasn't in love with her, not like I was with your mother, but she was always important to me, one way or another.”

“You think you’ll ever forgive her?”

“I already have. Think you will?”

Tony scratches at the scar on his wrist, “I’ve never told you because I don’t want to ruin your memory of her with my shit.” 

“You’re more important.” 

Tony feels guilt swirling in his gut even as he just forms the words in his head. 

“She believed that René Benoit killed her father.”

“You and Jeanne Benoit?”

“She set it all up. She wanted revenge before she died, then I found out and crashed my car and foiled her plans. And the CIA’s.” 

Jethro doesn’t seem to find that thought as funny as Tony. He’s gone a slightly ashen color. 

“You knew about her cancer?”

Tony swallows nervously, “For a couple weeks before she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I heard you. What are you sorry for?”

“For letting her use you. For making you think that you had to carry this on your own.” 

“Oh. That’s okay.”

“You don’t have to forgive me. I know I’ve done a lot of wrong by you and however much I might miss you I can’t, and don’t, expect you to forgive me.”

Tony feels the need to squirm in his seat, “That was very emotionally intelligent for you.”

Jethro huffs, “Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who’s been blackmailed into therapy.”

Tony feels a bubble of laughter rising up from somewhere deep and buried inside of him. 

…

It takes him the rest of summer but he realizes something. He had known that he wouldn't give up on them, it’s not in his nature, he’s too stubborn. It's not that he doesn't think that he could never reach that point, but he knows, for now at least, he’s heading for a place where he's going to need to fight instead of float, and he’s actually a little excited to get there. Although, knowing his luck, getting there is going to hurt like a son of a bitch.


End file.
